Court Opinion

ID: 9425633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:18.465179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:56.648784
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring.
I concur in the opinion of the Court. Although my reading of the legislative history of the Declarator Judgment Act of 1934 suggests that its primary purpose was to enable persons to obtain a definition of their rights before an actual injury had occurred, rather than to palliate any controversy arising from Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908), Congress apparently was aware at the time it passed the Act that persons threatened with state criminal prosecutions might choose to forgo the offending conduct and instead seek a federal declaration of their rights. Use of the declaratory judgment procedure in the circumstances presented by this case seems consistent with that congressional expectation.
If this ease were the Court's first opportunity to deal with this area of law, I would be content to let the *479matter rest there. But, as our cases abundantly illustrate, this area of law is in constant litigation, and it is an area through which our decisions have traced a path that may accurately be described as sinuous. Attempting to accommodate the principles of the new declaratory judgment procedure with other more established principles — in particular a proper regard for the relationship between the independent state and federal judiciary systems — this Court has acted both to advance and to limit the Act. Compare Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227 (1937), and Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241 (1967), with Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U. S. 293 (1943), and Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66 (1971). Because the opinion today may possibly be read by resourceful counsel as commencing a new and less restrictive curve in this path of adjudication, I feel it is important to emphasize what the opinion does and does not say.
To begin with, it seems appropriate to restate the obvious: the Court’s decision today deals only with declaratory relief and with threatened prosecutions. The case provides no authority for the granting of any in-junctive relief nor does it provide authority for the granting of any relief at all when prosecutions are pending. The Court quite properly leaves for another day whether the granting of a declaratory judgment by a federal court will have any subsequent res judicata effect or will perhaps support the issuance of a later federal injunction. But since possible resolutions of those issues would substantially undercut the principles of federalism reaffirmed in Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and preserved by the decision today, I feel it appropriate to add a few remarks.
First, the legislative history of the Declaratory Judgment Act and the Court’s opinion in this case both *480recognize that the declaratory judgment procedure is an alternative to pursuit of the arguably illegal activity.1 There is nothing in the Act’s history to suggest that Congress intended to provide persons wishing to violate state laws with a federal shield behind which they could carry on their contemplated conduct. Thus I do not believe that a federal plaintiff in a declaratory judgment action can avoid, by the mere filing of a complaint, the principles so firmly expressed in Samuels, supra. The plaintiff who continues to violate a state statute after the filing of his federal complaint does so both at the risk of state prosecution and at the risk of dismissal of his federal lawsuit. For any arrest prior to resolution of the federal action would constitute a pending prosecution and bar declaratory relief under the principles of Samuels.
Second, I do not believe that today’s decision can properly be raised to support the issuance of a federal injunction based upon a favorable declaratory judgment.2 *481The Court’s description of declaratory relief as “ 'a milder alternative to the injunction remedy,’ ” ante, at 467, having a “less intrusive effect on the administration of state criminal laws” than an injunction, ante, at 469, indicates to me critical distinctions which make declaratory relief appropriate where injunctive relief would not be. It would all but totally obscure these important distinctions if a successful application for declaratory relief came to be regarded, not as the conclusion of a lawsuit, but as a giant step toward obtaining an injunction against a subsequent criminal prosecution. The availability of injunctive relief must be considered with an eye toward the important policies of federalism which this Court has often recognized.
If the rationale of cases such as Younger and Samuels turned in any way upon the relative ease with which a federal district court could reach a conclusion about the constitutionality of a challenged state statute, a preexisting judgment declaring the statute unconstitutional as applied to a particular plaintiff would, of course, be a factor favoring the issuance of an injunction as “further relief” under the Declaratory Judgment Act. But, except for statutes that are “ ‘flagrantly and patently vio-lative of express constitutional prohibitions in every clause, sentence and paragraph ...,’” Younger v. Harris, supra, at 53, the rationale of those cases has no such basis. Their direction that federal courts not interfere with state prosecutions does not vary depending on the closeness of the constitutional issue or on the degree of confidence which the federal court possesses in the correctness of its conclusions on the constitutional *482point. Those decisions instead depend upon considerations relevant to the harmonious operation of separate federal and state court systems, with a special regard for the State’s interest in enforcing its own criminal laws, considerations which are as relevant in guiding the action of a federal court which has previously issued a declaratory judgment as they are in guiding the action of one which has not. While the result may be that injunctive relief is not available as “further relief” under the Declaratory Judgment Act in this particular class of cases whereas it would be in similar cases not involving considerations of federalism, this would be no more a pro tanto repeal of that provision of the Declaratory Judgment Act than was Younger a pro tanto repeal of the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651.
A declaratory judgment is simply a statement of rights, not a binding order supplemented by continuing sanctions. State authorities may choose to be guided by the judgment of a lower federal court, but they are not compelled to follow the decision by threat of contempt or other penalties. If the federal plaintiff pursues the conduct for which he was previously threatened with arrest and is in fact arrested, he may not return the controversy to federal court, although he may, of course, raise the federal declaratory judgment in the state court for whatever value it may prove to have.3 In any event, the defendant at that point is able to present his case *483for full consideration by a state court charged, as are the federal courts, to preserve the defendant’s constitutional rights. Federal interference with this process would involve precisely the same concerns discussed in Younger and recited in the Court’s opinion in this case.4
Third, attempts to circumvent Younger by claiming that enforcement of a statute declared unconstitutional by a federal court is per se evidence of bad faith should not find support in the Court’s decision in this case. As the Court notes, quoting my Brother Brennan’s separate opinion in Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 125:
“The persuasive force of the [federal] court’s opinion and judgment may lead state prosecutors, courts, and legislators to reconsider their respective responsibilities toward the statute. Enforcement policies or judicial construction may be changed, or the legislature may repeal the statute and start anew.” (Emphasis added.)
This language clearly recognizes that continued belief in the constitutionality of the statute by state prosecutorial officials would not commonly be indicative of bad faith and that such allegations, in the absence of highly unusual circumstances, would not justify a federal *484court's departure from the general principles of restraint discussed in Younger.
If the declaratory judgment remains, as I think the Declaratory Judgment Act intended, a simple declaration of rights without more, it will not be used merely as a dramatic tactical maneuver on the part of any state defendant seeking extended delays. Nor will it force state officials to try cases time after time, first in the federal courts and then in the state courts. I do not believe Congress desired such unnecessary results, and I do not think that today's decision should be read to sanction them. Rather the Act, and the decision, stand for the sensible proposition that both a potential state defendant, threatened with prosecution but not charged, and the State itself, confronted by a possible violation of its criminal laws, may benefit from a procedure which provides for a declaration of rights without activation of the criminal process. If the federal court finds that the threatened prosecution would depend upon a statute it judges unconstitutional, the State may decide to forgo prosecution of similar conduct in the future, believing the judgment persuasive. Should the state prosecutors not find the decision persuasive enough to justify forbearance, the successful federal plaintiff will at least be able to bolster his allegations of unconstitutionality in the state trial with a decision of the federal district court in the immediate locality. The state courts may find the reasoning convincing even though the prosecutors did not. Finally, of course, the state legislature may decide, on the basis of the federal decision, that the statute would be better amended or repealed. All these possible avenues of relief would be reached voluntarily by the States and would be completely consistent with the concepts of federalism discussed above. Other more intrusive forms of relief should not be routinely available.
*485These considerations should prove highly significant in reaching future decisions based upon the decision rendered today. For the present it is enough to say, as the Court does, that petitioner, if he successfully establishes the existence of a continuing controversy on remand, may maintain an action for a declaratory judgment in the District Court.

 The report accompanying the Senate version, of the bill stated:
"The procedure has been especially useful in avoiding the necessity, now so often present, of having to act at one’s peril or to act on one’s own interpretation of his rights, or abandon one’s rights because of a fear of incurring damages. So now it is often necessary, in the absence of the declaratory judgment procedure, to violate or purport to violate a statute in order to obtain a judicial determination of its meaning or validity. . . . Persons now often have to act at their peril, a danger which could be frequently avoided by the ability to sue for a declaratory judgment as to their rights or duties.” S. Rep. No. 1005, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 2-3 (1934).
Petitioner in this case, of course, did cease his handbilling activities after the warning of arrest.

 In Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66, 72 (1971), the Court expressed concern that a declaratory judgment issued while a state prosecution was pending “might serve as the basis for a subsequent injunction against those proceedings . . . .” The Court recognized that this chain of litigation would “result in a clearly improper inter*481ference with the state proceedings.” Ibid. As discussed, infra, I believe that such improper interference would be present even though the declaratory judgment itself were issued prior to the time of the federal plaintiff’s arrest.

 The Court’s opinion notes that the possible res judicata effect of a federal declaratory judgment in a subsequent state court prosecution is a question “ 'not free from difficulty.’ ” Ante, at 470. I express no opinion on that issue here. However, I do note that the federal decision would not be accorded the stare decisis effect in state court that it would have in a subsequent proceeding within the same federal jurisdiction. Although the state court would not be compelled to follow the federal holding, the opinion might, of course, be viewed as highly persuasive.

 The Court’s opinion says:
“Sensitive to principles of equity, comity, and federalism, we recognized in Younger v. Harris, [401 U. S. 37 (1971),] that federal courts should ordinarily refrain from enjoining ongoing state criminal prosecutions. We were cognizant that a pending state proceeding, in all but unusual cases, would provide the federal plaintiff with the necessary vehicle for vindicating his constitutional rights, and, in that circumstance, the restraining of an ongoing prosecution would entail an unseemly failure to give effect to the principle that state courts have the solemn responsibility, equally with the federal courts ‘to guard, enforce, and protect every right granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States . . . Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637 (1884).” Ante, at 460-461.