Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/421/426/case.html
Timestamp: 2016-05-04 02:08:36
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 31', '§ 1983', '§ 1343', '§ 1983', '§ 2201', '§ 1257', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983', '§ 1983']

Ellis v. Dyson :: 421 U.S. 426 (1975) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
› Ellis v. Dyson
Ellis v. Dyson 421 U.S. 426 (1975)
U.S. Supreme CourtEllis v. Dyson, 421 U.S. 426 (1975)Ellis v. DysonNo. 73-130Argued November 12, 1974Decided May 19, 1975421 U.S. 426CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which DOUGLAS, BRENNAN, MARSHALL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. REHNQUIST, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 421 U. S. 435. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 421 U. S. 437. POWELL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEWART, J., joined, and in Part II of which BURGER, C.J., joined, post, p. 421 U. S. 437. Page 421 U. S. 427
"include the following activities: the walking about aimlessly without apparent purpose; lingering; hanging around; lagging behind; the idle spending of Page 421 U. S. 428 time; delaying; sauntering and moving slowly about, where such conduct is not due to physical defects or conditions."
Before their trial in the Dallas Municipal Court [Footnote 1] petitioners sought a writ of prohibition from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to preclude their prosecution on the ground that the ordinance was unconstitutional on its face. App. 29. The petitioners contended, in particular, that § 31-60 is vague and overbroad, that it "permits arrest on the basis of alarm or concern only," and that it allows the offense to be defined "upon the moment-by-moment opinions and suspicions of a police officer on patrol." App. 31. The Court of Criminal Appeals, however, denied the application without opinion on February 21, 1972. [Footnote 2] The following day, the Municipal Court proceeded to try the case. After overruling petitioners' motion to dismiss the charges on the grounds of the ordinance's unconstitutionality, the court accepted their pleas of e [Footnote 3] and fined each petitioner $10 plus $2.50 costs. Page 421 U. S. 429
Electing to avoid the possibility of the imposition of a larger fine by the County Court than was imposed by the Municipal Court, petitioners brought the present federal action [Footnote 5] under the civil rights statutes, 42 U.S.C. 1983 [Footnote 6] and 28 U.S.C. 1343(3) and (4), and under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. 2201-2202. Page 421 U. S. 430 Named as defendants, in both their individual and official capacities, were the then chief of police, the city attorney, the then city manager, the then clerk of the Municipal Courts, and the mayor. Petitioners sought a declaratory judgment that the loitering ordinance is unconstitutional. They complained that the statute is vague and overbroad, places too much discretion in arresting officers, proscribes conduct that may not constitutionally be limited, and impermissibly chills the rights of free speech, association, assembly, and movement. Petitioners also sought equitable relief in the form of expunction of their records of arrests and convictions for violating the ordinance, and of some counteraction to any distribution to other law enforcement agencies of information as to their arrests and convictions. No injunctive relief against any future application of the statute to them was requested. Cf. Reed v. Giarrusso, 462 F.2d 706 (CA5 1972).
The petitioners moved for summary judgment upon the pleadings, admissions, affidavits, and "other matters of record."App. 42. The respondents, in turn, moved to dismiss and suggested, as well, "that the abstention doctrine is applicable." Id. at 58. The District Court held that federal declaratory and injunctive relief against future state criminal prosecutions was not available where there was no allegation of bad faith prosecution, harassment, or other unusual circumstances presenting a likelihood of irreparable injury and harm to the petitioners if the ordinance were enforced. This result, it concluded, was mandated by the decision of its controlling court in Becker v. Thompson, 459 F.2d 919 (CA5 1972). In Becker, the Fifth Circuit had held that the principles of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), applied not only where a state criminal prosecution was actually pending, but also where a state criminal prosecution was merely threatened. Since the present petitioners' complaint Page 421 U. S. 431 contained insufficient allegation of irreparable harm, the case was dismissed. 358 F.Supp. 262 (1973). [Footnote 7] The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed without opinion. 475 F.2d 1402 (1973). After we unanimously reversed the Becker decision on which the District Court had relied, Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974), we granted the petition for certiorari. 416 U.S. 954 (1974).
Steffel then filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 1343 in Federal District Court, seeking a declaratory judgment [Footnote 8] that the ordinance was being applied in violation of his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It was stipulated that, if Steffel returned and refused upon request to stop handbilling, a warrant would be sworn out and he might be arrested and charged with a violation of the statute. 415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 456. Contrary Page 421 U. S. 432 to the views of the District Court and of the Court of Appeals in the present case, we held that
Exhaustion of state judicial or administrative remedies in Steffel was ruled not to be necessary, for we have long held that an action under § 1983 is free of that requirement. Page 421 U. S. 433 415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 472-473. See, e.g., Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 365 U. S. 183 (1961). We did require, however, that it be clearly demonstrated that there was a continuing, actual controversy, as is mandated both by the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, and by Art. III of the Constitution itself. Although we noted in Steffel, 415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 459, that the threats of prosecution were not "imaginary or speculative," as those terms were used in Younger, 401 U.S. at 401 U. S. 42, we remanded the case to the District Court to determine, among other things, if the controversy was still live and continuing. See 415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 460. In particular, we observed that the handbilling had been directed against our Government's policy in Vietnam and "the recent developments reducing the Nation's involvement in that part of the world" could not be ignored, so that there was a possibility there no longer existed
The principles and approach of Steffel are applicable here. The District Court and the Court of Appeals decided this case under the misapprehension that the Younger doctrine applied where there is a threatened state criminal prosecution, as well as where there is a state criminal prosecution already pending. Those courts had no reason to reach the merits of the case or to determine the actual existence of a genuine threat of prosecution, or to inquire into the relationship between the past prosecution and the threat of prosecutions for similar activity in the future. Now that Steffel has been decided, these issues may properly be investigated. Page 421 U. S. 434
Second, there is some question on this record as it now stands regarding the pattern of the statute's enforcement. Answers to interrogatories reveal an average of somewhat more than two persons per day were arrested in Dallas during seven specified months in 1972 for the statutory loitering offense. App. 68. Of course, on remand, the District Court will find it desirable to examine the current enforcement scheme in order to determine whether, indeed, there now is a credible threat that petitioners, assuming they are physically present in Dallas, might be arrested and charged with loitering. A genuine threat must be demonstrated if a case or controversy, within the meaning of Art. III of the Constitution and of the Declaratory Judgment Act, may be said to exist. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 458-460. See generally Page 421 U. S. 435 O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 414 U. S. 493-499 (1974); Boyle v. Landry, 401 U. S. 77, 401 U. S. 81 (1971). Further, the credible threat must be shown to be alive at each stage of the litigation. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. at 415 U. S. 459 n. 10, and cases cited therein.
"* * * *" "6. A plea of nolo contendere. The legal effect of such plea shall be the same as that of a plea of guilty, but the plea may not be used against the defendant as an admission in any civil suit based upon or growing out of the act upon which the criminal prosecution is based."
I join the opinion of the Court, and add these few words only to indicate why I believe the Court is quite correct in leaving to the District Court on remand the issues treated in the dissenting opinion of my Brother POWELL and the concurring and dissenting opinion of my Brother WHITE. Page 421 U. S. 436
I believe the Court's remand to the District Court, which will give that court an opportunity to reconsider the jurisdictional issues within the framework of Steffel and to pass in the first instance on the other issues that Page 421 U. S. 437 my Brothers POWELL and WHITE would have us decide today, is entirely appropriate. Since I read the opinion of the Court as intimating no views on either of these questions that are contrary to those suggested by my dissenting Brethren, I am quite content to leave them for the consideration of the District Court in the first instance.
Petitioners were convicted in Dallas, Tex., Municipal Court, on pleas of nolo contendere, of violating the city's loitering ordinance. They were fined $10 each. Under Texas law, petitioners had the right to a trial de novo in the County Court. Appellate review of an adverse County Court judgment imposing a fine in excess of $100 would have been available in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. A determination by the highest state court in which a decision could be had, if it upheld the constitutionality of the ordinance, would have been appealable to this Court. 28 U.S.C. § 1257(2). Page 421 U. S. 438
In its decision today, relying on Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974), the Court reverses the decision of the Court of Appeals and remands the case for further consideration of petitioners' request for declaratory relief. The Court also finds it unnecessary to consider petitioners' prayer for expunction. I am in disagreement on both points. I would hold that any relief as to petitioners' previous arrests and convictions is barred by their nolo contendere pleas, equivalent under Texas law to pleas of guilty, [Footnote 2/2] and by their deliberate decision to forgo state appellate remedies. As to prospective relief, I think that Steffel and the general principles of justiciability to which it adheres require affirmance, not a reversal and remand. In view of the undisputed facts in this case, we should decide these issues now. The ends of justice will not be served by a remand and further litigation. Moreover, Page 421 U. S. 439 today's decision, especially in its reading of Steffel, seems likely to confuse both the District Court in this case and other federal courts faced with an increasing number of cases raising similar problems.
I turn first to the retrospective relief sought by petitioners: their prayer for an order expunging the records of their arrests and convictions. The question raised by this prayer is whether a plaintiff may resort to § 1983 to attack collaterally his state criminal conviction when he has either knowingly pleaded guilty to the charge or failed to invoke state appellate remedies. This issue was raised in the courts below, [Footnote 2/3] decided by those courts, [Footnote 2/4] and argued to this Court. [Footnote 2/5] As the Court recognizes, ante at 421 U. S. 435, this issue is unaffected by our decision in Steffel, which is relevant only to petitioners' request for prospective relief. Moreover, even if the case is moot insofar as it concerns prospective relief because petitioners no longer live in Dallas, that fact has no bearing on petitioners' request for expunction. Thus, I can see no justification for deferring resolution of this important issue. Page 421 U. S. 440
The Court has never expressly decided whether and in what circumstances § 1983 can be invoked to attack collaterally state criminal convictions. The resolution of this general problem depends on the extent to which, in a § 1983 action, principles of res judicata bar relitigation in federal court of constitutional issues decided in state judicial proceedings to which the federal plaintiff was a party. But we need not resolve this general problem here. [Footnote 2/6] For even assuming, arguendo, that the scope of Page 421 U. S. 441 collateral attack is as expansive in § 1983 actions as it has been held to be in habeas corpus proceedings, I think it clear beyond question that petitioners' action for retrospective relief is barred. If petitioners had been confined as a result of their nolo contendere pleas, and thereafter filed habeas corpus petitions in federal court, there can be no doubt that their petitions should have been dismissed. As noted above, the nolo contendere pleas were equivalent to guilty pleas. It is settled that, when defendants plead guilty to state criminal charges, they may not seek federal habeas corpus relief on the basis of constitutional claims antecedent to and independent of the guilty pleas. E.g., Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U. S. 258, 411 U. S. 267 (1973). In such circumstances, federal habeas petitioners may attack only "the voluntary and intelligent character" of the pleas. Ibid. [Footnote 2/7] Moreover, when Page 421 U. S. 442 federal habeas petitioners deliberately have elected to forgo state appellate remedies afforded them, the federal court may deny relief. [Footnote 2/8] Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 372 U. S. 438-439 (1963). When a state criminal defendant pleads guilty to state charges or refuses to invoke state appellate remedies, his conviction no longer can be said to rest on an alleged denial of a constitutional right. Instead, it rests solely on the defendant's refusal to litigate the asserted right. The only issue then cognizable on collateral attack is whether the refusal to litigate was knowing and voluntary. If it was, collateral attack based on the asserted constitutional claim is foreclosed. See id. at 372 U. S. 468-472 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
These established principles of federal habeas corpus jurisdiction should apply with at least equal force to attempts under § 1983 collaterally to attack state criminal Page 421 U. S. 443 convictions. [Footnote 2/9] I would hold that § 1983 does not allow such deliberate circumvention of the state judicial processes, and that, when a state defendant knowingly pleads guilty or fails to invoke state appellate remedies, his conviction is not subject to impeachment in a § 1983 action.
"Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy Page 421 U. S. 444 and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment."
Id. at 415 U. S. 459. Page 421 U. S. 445 As MR. JUSTICE STEWART put it in his concurring opinion:
Application of the challenged Dallas ordinance depends, by its terms, on the facts of each case. It is extremely unlikely that the exact set of circumstances leading to the previous arrest and conviction of petitioners will ever be repeated. Petitioners' brief, attempting to accommodate to Steffel's rationale, refers vaguely to "petitioners' fear of arrest and prosecution." [Footnote 2/10] Read most generously, however, the complaint and supporting materials Page 421 U. S. 446 are barren of any facts relating petitioners' past arrests to a possibility of future arrests, or otherwise substantiating their asserted fears that the Dallas ordinance again will be invoked against them. The only basis for "fear" mentioned by counsel is the fact that loitering arrests were occurring in Dallas "at the rate of more than two per day." [Footnote 2/11] But two arrests per day in a city of more than one million persons hardly represents a high-risk situation for anyone, and certainly poses no particularized threat to petitioners. Under the facts alleged in the complaint or appearing from other materials before the District Court, petitioners' position with respect to the challenged ordinance was no different from what it would have been had they never been arrested, and their chances of future prosecution no greater than those of any other person who used the streets of Dallas. [Footnote 2/12] Page 421 U. S. 447
Steffel does not depart from this general analysis. The difference between Steffel and the above cases lies in the nature of the statute involved. Steffel concerned a general trespass ordinance that did not, on its face, apply particularly to activities in which Steffel engaged or sought to engage. The statute was susceptible of a multitude of applications that would not even arguably exceed constitutional limitations on state power. But the Page 421 U. S. 448 threatened prosecution of Steffel, following the arrest and prosecution of his companion, demonstrated that the state officials construed the statute to apply to the precise activities in which Steffel had engaged and proposed to engage in the future. There was, therefore, no question that Steffel was confronted with a choice identical in principle and practical consequence to that faced by plaintiffs in the above cases: he could either risk criminal prosecution or forgo engaging in specific activities that he believed were protected by the First Amendment. Whichever choice he made, the harm to Steffel was real and immediate.
The pleadings in this case reveal no like circumstances. They merely aver that the Dallas ordinance has a "chilling" effect on First Amendment rights of speech and association. This averment, moreover, is related not to petitioners specifically, but rather to the "citizens of Dallas." [Footnote 2/14] While it is theoretically possible that the ordinance may be applied to infringe petitioners' First Amendment rights, nothing in the facts relating to their respective prior arrests and convictions indicates that the ordinance has been so applied to petitioners, or indeed to anyone else. In short, petitioners Page 421 U. S. 449 rely entirely on a speculative deterrent effect that the Dallas ordinance conceivably could have on the exercise of constitutional rights by all Dallas citizens. The complaint nowhere alleges that the ordinance has been applied to particular activities, assertedly within the scope of First Amendment protection, in which petitioners regularly engage or in which they would engage but do not because of fear of prosecution. Compare CSC v. Letter Carriers, supra, with United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 330 U. S. 86-91 (1947). As the cases discussed above demonstrate, before a statute may be challenged on the ground that it deters the exercise of constitutional rights, the alleged restraint must, in all events, be personal to the complaining parties.
Petitioners' pleadings thus failed to demonstrate that they were suffering any "real and immediate" harm consequent to the enforcement of the Dallas ordinance. The Court's opinion, however, states that the District Page 421 U. S. 450 Court and the Court of Appeals
The situation here is similar to that, in O'Shea v. Littleton, supra. In that case, the District Court dismissed the suit both for want of equitable jurisdiction to grant the relief prayed for and on the ground that the defendants were immune from suit. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed, and we, in turn, reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals. What we said there is Page 421 U. S. 451 equally applicable here:
A determination of present mootness is altogether immaterial to the question whether there was federal jurisdiction at the time declaratory relief initially was Page 421 U. S. 452 sought. Only if a specific, live controversy existed between the parties at the threshold can federal jurisdiction attach. And only if the requisite justiciable controversy then existed may a court determine whether it persists at some subsequent stage of the case, or whether the requested relief properly can be granted. [Footnote 2/18] In Steffel, we adopted precisely this order of resolving just such issues; first, we found that the case was justiciable when filed; only then did we reach the question whether declaratory relief was proper in the circumstances and remand for a determination of whether with the passage of time the threat to Steffel had subsided. There is no occasion for a remand for any purpose when the record demonstrates indisputably that petitioners' prayer for prospective relief was not, at the outset, within the District Court's power to grant.
"in the uncomfortable position where it will have to choose between adhering to its present decision -- in my view, a faithful reflection of this Court's Page 421 U. S. 453 past cases -- or treating the remand as an oblique invitation from this Court to [reverse its decision]."