Opinion ID: 600370
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The position of the Shelby County State's Attorney

Text: 26 The State's Attorney emphasizes the strong policy embodied in the Younger doctrine that the normal thing to do when federal courts are asked to enjoin pending proceedings in state courts is not to issue such injunctions. Younger, 401 U.S. at 45, 91 S.Ct. at 751. It is necessary, submits the State's Attorney, for the applicant to show a bad faith prosecution, harassment, or some other unusual or extraordinary circumstance that would call for equitable relief. Id. at 54, 91 S.Ct. at 755. 27 The State's Attorney first argues that this case does not involve a bad faith prosecution. There is no prosecution based on impermissible criteria such as race or religion. Nor is there any indication that the state has failed to provide adequate procedural safeguards. Turning to the district court's analogy to plea bargains, the State's Attorney suggests that the situation before us is significantly different. In a plea bargain, continues the State's Attorney, the defendant relinquishes all the protections concomitant with the right to trial. Here, the only protection implicated is the right against self-incrimination, a right that is coextensive with the protections provided by a direct grant of use immunity. The Illinois courts have already suppressed that testimony and thus protected Mr. Arkebauer's right against self-incrimination. Therefore, at the time that Mr. Arkebauer asked the district court to grant injunctive relief, there was no federal right in jeopardy and the federal court could not, under the strictures of Younger, enter an injunction. 28 Relying on United States v. Eckhardt, 843 F.2d 989 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 839, 109 S.Ct. 106, 102 L.Ed.2d 81 (1988), the State's Attorney argues that this court has never recognized the concept of equitable immunity. Nevertheless, he continues, such a doctrine still would not preclude prosecution in this case. Like the defendant in United States v. Andrus, 775 F.2d 825 (7th Cir.1985), the only thing given up by Mr. Arkebauer, his right against self-incrimination, has been protected by the state court's suppression of the statements; he is in no worse position than he was before he spoke with the Macon County State's Attorney. 29 Finally, the Shelby County State's Attorney argues that Mr. Arkebauer is in effect arguing for transactional immunity, an immunity that the Macon County State's Attorney could not, as a matter of state law, confer without the approval of the court. Mr. Arkebauer, submits the State's Attorney, is charged with the responsibility of knowing the limits of the authority of the state officials with whom he deals. In any event, the State's Attorney for Shelby County ought not be equitably bound by the actions of another government official whose actions he could not control.