Court Opinion

ID: 9660421
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:13:09.288372+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:19.371847
License: Public Domain

ELY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. We long withheld our disposition of the subject cases pending a decision by the California Supreme Court as to the constitutionality of the California statute which is here challenged. The controversy in California’s high court was there argued, again reargued after a change in the composition in the court, and, at long last, resolved in an opinion with which three of the seven justices of the court disagreed. People v. Luros, 4 Cal.3d 84, 92 Cal.Rptr. 833, 480 P.2d 633 (1971). I find the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Tobriner more persuasive than that issued by the majority of his Brothers. Moreover, I have previously recorded my view that an Oregon statute which, as interpreted by the Supreme Court of Oregon, is very similar to the statute here under attack, is constitutionally invalid. See Hayse v. Van Hoomissen, 321 F.Supp. 642 (D.Ore. 1970), vacated sub nom., Van Hoomissen v. Hayse, 403 U.S. 927, 91 S.Ct. 2248, 29 L.Ed.2d 705 (1971). That case has not yet been reconsidered and resolved by the three-judge District Court to which it was remanded. I understand, too, that the California Supreme Court’s decision in People v. Luros is not final, review thereof being sought in the Supreme Court of the United States. It seems to me, therefore, that there is no such pressing urgency, after our already long abstention, which should require that we now issue a dispositive order of dismissal while some uncertainty remains and while People v. Luros remains pending. I would therefore further abstain until the Supreme Court had denied certiorari in People v. Luros or has granted certiorari and made the conclusive decision as to whether the challenged California statute is or is not valid.
Added to the foregoing consideration is my belief that the allegations of the complaints, particularly by World News and Luros, are such that orders for the dismissal of the complaints are inap*181propriate. There are charges of harassment and “bad faith” prosecutions on the part of California officials which, if true, would warrant this court’s intervention under the principles announced by the Supreme Court in Younger v. Harris and Perez v. Ledesma. There are no motions for summary judgment before us, and the factual record which we now have is too inadequate to enable me to join in holding, with assurance, that the plaintiffs cannot prove that they are entitled to relief. The procedure which my Brothers employ divests the plaintiffs of their right to adduce proof that, if developed, could legally entitle them to protection which this court is empowered to afford. I cannot conscientiously join in an order which, as I see it, bypasses traditional procedural rights essential to the guarantee of justice in the federal courts.