Court Opinion

ID: 9458481
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:53:07.761704+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:46.840029
License: Public Domain

GEWIN and DYER, Circuit Judges,
specially concurring:
The full court has considered the views of Judge Tuttle, expressed in concurrence, and has further considered the suggestion that the panel has been overruled by Lake Carriers’ Association v. MacMullan, 1972, 406 U.S. 498, 92 S.Ct. 1749, 32 L.Ed.2d 257.
Lake Carriers’ is an abstention ease, and as Justice Brennan points out, “[T]he question of abstention, of course is entirely separate from the question of granting declaratory or injunctive relief.” 406 U.S. at 509, 92 S.Ct. at 1756. Significantly, he also points out that in Lake Carriers’, unlike Becker, there is an “absence of an immediate threat of prosecution.” Id. at 511, 92 S.Ct. at 1757. Justice Brennan’s gratuitous statement that, in the absence of pending prosecutions, declaratory relief may be appropriate, is as he indicates, taken from his separate opinion in Perez v. Ledesma, 1971, 401 U.S. 82, 91 S.Ct. 674, 27 L.Ed. 2d 701, and is pure dicta in Lake Carriers’. To suggest that the Supreme Court in collateral dicta in Lake Carriers’ has decided that the prerequisites to federal intervention defined in Younger v. Harris, 1971, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669, do not apply to declaratory judgments against threatened state criminal prosecutions is inconceivable when the issue was so carefully preserved in Younger and Samuels v. Mackell, 1971, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 for a time when the point was squarely raised.
The lack of a nod to the Younger doctrine by the Supreme Court in its recent decisions in Police Department of the City of Chicago v. Mosley, 1972, 408 U.S. 92, 92 S.Ct. 2286, 33 L.Ed.2d 212 and Lloyd Corp., Ltd. v. Tanner, 1972, 407 U.S. 551, 92 S.Ct. 2219, 33 L.Ed.2d 131, is of no moment. The grant of certiorari in each case was specifically limited to constitutional issues other than those raised by Younger and its progeny. See 1972, 404 U.S. 1037, 92 S.Ct. 703, 30 L. Ed.2d 728; 1972, 404 U.S. 821, 92 S.Ct. 42, 30 L.Ed.2d 48.
We underscore our agreement with the dissent that the district courts of this Circuit are entitled to consistent decision making on our part. Since Younger and Samuels were decided, but prior to the decision in this case, this Court twice held that declaratory relief was inappro*1339priate in cases involving threatened state criminal prosecutions in the absence of proof of Younger prerequisites to intervention. Cooley v. Endictor, 5 Cir. 1972, 458 F.2d 513; Thevis v. Moore, 5 Cir. 1971, 440 F.2d 1350. Such is the holding of the case sub judice. No panel has held to the contrary.1
Before JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge and WISDOM, GEWIN, BELL, THORNBERRY, COLEMAN, GOLDBERG, AINSWORTH, GODBOLD, DYER, SIMPSON, MORGAN, CLARK, IN-GRAHAM and RONEY, Circuit Judges.

. The dissent’s suggestion that the panel opinion is inconsistent with Hobbs v. Thompson, 5 Cir. 1971, 448 F.2d 456, is inexplicable. Hobbs is a civil, not a criminal case, involving no possibility of interference with state criminal proceedings.