Court Opinion

ID: 9627931
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:59:43.005816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:08.392827
License: Public Domain

McMANUS, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
On October 18, 1973, plaintiff was enjoined from showing the movie “Deep Throat” et al. by the Linn County district court as a nuisance under Chapters 99 and 725 Iowa Code on the grounds of “lewdness” as construed by State v. Nelson, 178 N.W.2d 434 (1970). On October 25, 1973, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 plaintiff filed its complaint here seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Chapters 99 and 725 as applied to motion picture films. Appearing to be an appropriate ease, this three-judge court was convened on October 30, 1973. By Order of December 18, 1973, the three-judge court found it had jurisdiction of the parties and subject matter but abstained from ruling on the merits since an appeal from the decision of the state district court was pending before the Supreme Court of Iowa. Subsequently, however, the legally relevant circumstances of this case significantly changed and on June 25, 1974, plaintiff renewed its motion for a preliminary injunction, after denial of its request for an expedited appeal by the state supreme court.
It is my view that the original ambiguity of state law justifying abstention no longer exists. It has been clearly resolved both judicially and legislatively.1 Thus the issue originally supporting abstention is totally dissipated and rendered frivolous.
For this court to continue abstention contravenes the admonition of Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U.S. 51, 85 S.Ct. 734, 13 L.Ed.2d 649 (1965), that in restraining the showing of a film “the procedure must also assure a prompt final judicial decision, to minimize the deterrent effect of an interim and possibly erroneous denial” (emphasis added) of the right to exhibit the film.
Over 13 months have already passed since the state injunction and it appears that the appeal will not be heard by the Supreme Court before January 1975, making the date of ultimate redress of plaintiff’s First Amendment rights by the state courts anybody’s guess. Continued abstention places plaintiff in the anomalous position of being the only commercial entity in the state of Iowa which is or could be restrained from showing the films in question.
The “great and immediate threat of irreparable injury” standard for federal injunction of state criminal prosecutions enunciated in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), is inapposite here. The policies of noninterference by a court of equity with a criminal prosecution and federal-state comity which underlay the Younger decision apply only with greatly lessened force to a federal injunction of a state civil proceeding which infringes First Amendment rights. The usual standards for grant of a preliminary in*279junction in a civil case are appropriate here and are met by the instant facts.2
In light of these considerations and the holding of Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 92 S.Ct. 2151, 32 L.Ed.2d 705 (1972), that § 1983 is an exception to the federal anti-injunction statute, it would seem incumbent for this court to forthwith restore plaintiff to the status quo prior to October 18, 1973 by granting its motion.

. State v. Kueny, 215 N.W.2d 215 (Iowa February 20, 1974), restricting State v. Nelson, 178 N.W.2d 434 (1970), ami declaring “lewdness” in Chapter 725 unconstitutionally vague. Chapter 1267, 65 G.A. 1974 (effective July 1, 1974) repealed all relevant sections of Chapter 725, redefined “obscenity” in terms of Miller v. California, 414 U.S. 881, 94 S.Ct. 26, 38 L.Ed.2d 128 (1973), and legalized exhibition to. adults.

. The court must find that there is a probable right and a probable danger to that right, that the right may be defeated unless the injunction is issued, that plaintiff is in substantial need of protection, that he will probably succeed on the merits and that plaintiff’s damage should the injunction be denied clearly outweighs any foreseeable harm to defendant. Sinclair Refining Co. v. Midland Oil Co., 55 F.2d 42 (C.A.4 1932). Crowther v. Seaborg, 415 F.2d 437 (C.A.10 1969).