Court Opinion

ID: 9424437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:11:37.462312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:50.306459
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Marshall join, concurring in the result.
I agree that the judgment of the District Court should be reversed. Appellee Harris had been indicted for violations of the California Criminal Syndicalism Act before he sued in federal court. He has not alleged that the prosecution was brought in bad faith to harass him. His constitutional contentions may be adequately adjudi*57cated in the state criminal proceeding, and federal intervention at his instance was therefore improper.*
Appellees Hirseh and Dan have alleged that they “feel inhibited” by the statute and the prosecution of Harris from advocating the program of the Progressive Labor Party. Appellee Broslawsky has alleged that he “is uncertain” whether as an instructor in college history he can under the statute give instruction relating to the Communist Manifesto and similar revolutionary works. None of these appellees has stated any ground for a reasonable expectation that he will actually be prosecuted under the statute for taking the actions contemplated. The court below expressly declined to rely on any finding “that . . . Dan, Hirseh or Broslawsky stand [s] in any danger of prosecution by the [State], because of the activities that they ascribed to themselves in the com*58plaint . . . 281 F. Supp. 507, 516. It is true, as the court below pointed out, that “[w]ell-intentioned prosecutors and judicial safeguards do not neutralize the vice of a vague law,” Baggett v. Bullitt, 377 U. S. 360, 373 (1964), but still there must be a live controversy under Art. III. No threats of prosecution of these appellees are alleged. Although Dan and Hirsch have alleged that they desire to advocate doctrines of the Progressive Labor Party, they have not asserted that their advocacy will be of the same genre as that which brought on the prosecution of Harris. In short, there is no reason to think that California has any ripe controversy with them. See Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103 (1969); Perez v. Ledesma, post, p. 93 (Brennan, J., concurring and dissenting).

The District Court erroneously interpreted Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U. S. 241 (1967), as.authorizing federal court consideration of a constitutional claim at issue in a pending state proceeding, whether or not the federal court plaintiff had presented his claim to the state court. It suffices here to note that in Zwickler no state proceeding was pending at the time jurisdiction attached in the federal court. The court below also thought it significant that appellee Harris had raised his constitutional claim in the state courts in a motion to dismiss the indictment and in petitions in the state appellate courts for a writ of prohibition. It was questioned at oral argument whether constitutional issues could properly be raised by the procedures invoked by Harris, and it was suggested that the denial of Harris’ motions did not necessarily involve rejection of his constitutional claims. However, even if the California courts had at that interlocutory stage rejected Harris’ constitutional arguments, that rejection would not have provided a justification for intervening by the District Court. Harris could have sought direct review of that rejection of his constitutional claims or he could have renewed the claims in requests for instructions, and on direct review of any conviction in the state courts and in this Court. These were the proper modes for presentation and these the proper forums for consideration of the constitutional issues.