Opinion ID: 771682
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pending and Possible Future Prosecutions

Text: 13 The Secretary also argues that the case is not moot because there is an outstanding state case involving a prosecution under the prior statute. Colo. Resp. Br. re: Mootness at 6 (June 19, 2000) (citing League of Women Voters v. Davidson, No. 2000-CA-000216 (ROA filed in Colo. Ct. App. on May 22, 2000)). League of Women Voters, however, does not involve any of the repealed provisions. Instead, it relates to 103(7), (10), (11), and 107, all of which were unaffected by H.B. 00-1194. 14 The Secretary also claims that the challenges to 104 are not moot because the State may, at some indefinite point in the future, begin prosecuting persons or organizations for pre-repeal violations, thereby having a residual effect on persons who violated the limits before the district court issued its injunction. Resp. Br. re: Mootness at 6 (June 19, 2000). We agree with the Eighth Circuit that an allegation of collateral consequences in a separate lawsuit . . . does not fall within any exception to the mootness doctrine . . . . Nebraska v. Cent. Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Comm'n, 187 F.3d 982, 987 (8th Cir. 1999); accord United States v. Balint, 201 F.3d 928, 937 n.2 (7th Cir. 2000) ([T]he defendants' vulnerability to a future civil suit for contribution by a third party not before us does not preserve this appeal.). The Seventh Circuit case cited by the State, Charles v. Daley, 749 F.2d 452 (7th Cir. 1984), is not inconsistent with these holdings. Although the court in that case found the possibility that the plaintiffs would be prosecuted under pre-amendment statutes to be insufficiently speculative to moot their challenges, id. at 457, it also noted the basic principle that federal courts are without power to decide questions that cannot affect the rights of the litigants in the case before them . . . . Id. at 456 (quoting North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U.S. 244, 246 (1971)). In this case, our decision to vacate the district court's orders regarding the repealed sections does not extinguish the State's right to investigate and prosecute pre-repeal violations, nor does it impair the rights of potential defendants' to challenge the constitutionality of the old statutes when and if such prosecutions actually occur. Cf. Two Guys from Harrison-Allentown, Inc. v. McGinley, 366 U.S. 582, 589 (1961) (agreeing with lower court that if threat of prosecution under arguably superseded state statute arose, and if a state court decided that the statute was still applicable, that would be time enough to consider that statute's validity). Thus, Colorado's potential prosecutions argument fails. 15