Court Opinion

ID: 9481010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:05:16.250753+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:02.755342
License: Public Domain

HATCHETT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The real issue in this case is: How many times may a litigant lose the same case by raising new grounds of defense? In the original litigation, Georgia’s state court judges and the state of Georgia moved to dismiss this action on the grounds of (1) eleventh amendment immunity, (2) lack of Article III “case or controversy,” (3) lack of federal question “substantiality,” and (4) lack of a justiciable claim. The district court dismissed the case on the basis of eleventh amendment immunity. Upon reconsideration, the district court dismissed the case for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Significantly, issues regarding comity, federalism, and abstention, were never pleaded, never briefed, never argued, and never ruled upon.
In Luckey v. Harris, 860 F.2d 1012, 1018 (11th Cir.1988), we reversed the district court holding:
Appellants have alleged that systemic delays in the appointment of counsel deny them their sixth amendment right to the representation of counsel at critical stages in the criminal process, hamper the ability of their counsel to defend them, and effectively deny them their eighth and fourteenth amendment right to bail, that their attorneys are denied investigative and expert resources necessary to defend them effectively, that their attorneys are pressured by courts to hurry their case to trial or to enter a guilty plea, and that they are denied equal protection of the laws. Without passing on the merits of these allegations, we conclude that they are sufficient to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S.Ct. 1087, 84 L.Ed.2d 53 (1985); Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2006, 32 L.Ed.2d 530 (1972); Coleman v. Alabama, 399 U.S. 1, 90 S.Ct. 1999, 26 L.Ed.2d 387 (1970); United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U.S. 52, 82 S.Ct. 157, 7 L.Ed.2d 114 (1961).
We remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with the opinion. At the request of a judge of the court, the court conducted an en banc poll. The court voted not to reconsider the case en banc. Judge Edmondson filed a dissent to the court’s failure to take the case en banc, the heart of which states:
The most troublesome aspect of this case is its disregard for federalism and comity between federal and state courts. The lower federal courts are not and ought not to be the general supervisors of state courts; yet this is what the complaint seeks. Lower federal courts— that is, district and circuit courts — can enforce the sixth amendment against the states; but the appropriate enforcement mechanism is post-conviction habeas cor*895pus relief, operating on a case-by-case basis and grounded upon a finding of prejudice.
Luckey v. Harris, 896 F.2d 479, 480-81 (11th Cir.1989) (Edmondson, J., dissenting). Judge Cox and two other judges joined in the dissent. The state of Georgia and Georgia’s judges then sought certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. The United States Supreme Court denied certio-rari. Harris v. Luckey, — U.S. -, 110 S.Ct. 2562, 109 L.Ed.2d 744 (1990). The Eleventh Circuit issued its mandate.
What is to be done upon issuance of the mandate? The district court is to proceed in accordance with the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion. That is, it must try the issues that the parties have “joined.”
Picking up on the dissent from the Eleventh Circuit’s denial of en banc consideration, the state of Georgia and Georgia’s state court judges filed another motion to dismiss. Not only did the motion to dismiss raise new and untimely grounds for dismissal, but the grounds offered mirrored those outlined in Judge Edmondson’s dissent: comity, federalism and abstention.
The district court held that the law of the case kept it from dismissing the complaint on these new, untimely, recently-suggested grounds. Having correctly ruled on this issue, the district court nevertheless certified the case for interlocutory appeal finding that this ruling “involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion.” See 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b).
The law of the case barred the district court’s dismissal of this action. As the district court correctly reasoned when denying the motion to dismiss:
by soundly reversing this Court, denying rehearing, denying rehearing en banc in the face of Judge Edmondson’s dissent, and denying Defendants’ motion to stay the mandate pending the Supreme Court’s disposition of Defendants’ petition for a writ of certiorari, the Eleventh Circuit gave this Court the clear message that this case should be heard. The Court therefore concludes, under the law of the case, that the abstention doctrine does not apply. See Litman v. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, 825 F.2d 1506, 1510 (11th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1006, 108 S.Ct. 700, 98 L.Ed.2d 652 (1988).
The public and legal community expect more from the federal courts. When every pleading can be amended on demand, and every previous ruling can be revisited and reversed at any time, a legal system becomes chaotic. When the outcome of a case changes simply because the membership of a court changes, the public’s respect for the legal system is eroded.