Opinion ID: 2981663
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “On-going state judicial proceedings”

Text: The proceedings before the Judicial Tenure Commission are “judicial in nature.” Middlesex Cnty., 457 U.S. at 433-34; see also O’Neill v. Coughlan, 511 F.3d 638, 643 (6th Cir. 2008); Squire, -6- No. 12-1453 James v. Hampton, et al. 469 F.3d at 555-56. James apparently concedes this point as she does not contest it in her briefing. Still, James says that the state disciplinary proceeding “was not currently pending when this case was filed.” As she would have it, the state proceeding did not begin until January 23, 2012, the date that the JTC complaint hearing on the merits commenced, and three days after she filed this lawsuit. For Younger abstention purposes, state law controls the determination of when the state proceedings began. See O’Neill, 511 F.3d at 643. Michigan’s Supreme Court has yet to squarely address when Judicial Tenure Commission proceedings begin. But in considering Ohio’s judicial regulatory scheme, we explained that “the Ohio Supreme Court has held that the filing of a grievance is the beginning of the judicial process.” Id. We see no reason to question that result. We agree with the district court that the state proceedings against James began before her January 20, 2012, district-court filing, and most likely with the filing of the JTC’s formal complaint on October 26, 2011.4 Accordingly, we find that the state judicial proceedings were ongoing when James filed this lawsuit. 4 In a rhetorical flourish, James says that “[i]f the mere filing of the JTC’s formal complaint was the start of the judicial proceedings for the purposes of Younger abstention, Judge James would have had no opportunity to bring her Federal Constitutional claims to the attention of the Federal Court because she did not even know such claims definitively existed until the JTC filed its complaint.” Indeed, the point of Younger abstention is a “national policy forbidding federal courts to stay or enjoin pending state court proceedings except under special circumstances.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 41 (1971). Younger itself concerned a plaintiff’s attempt to enjoin the enforcement of a state statute that he claimed was unconstitutional. James’s argument here contests not so much the filing dates, but Younger’s third prong, the availability of relief in the state proceedings. -7- No. 12-1453 James v. Hampton, et al.