Court Opinion

ID: 9461587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:18:23.810343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:08.774653
License: Public Domain

GEWIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
The majority, persuaded by “an arguable showing of non-futility as to the state court remedy”, note 7, supra, concludes that the state court defendant has not satisfied the exhaustion requirements of, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. Because two federal decisions, including one of this court, have declared the statute in question unconstitutional on its face, and because I find no indication that the Supreme Court of Florida will not continue to uphold its validity, I believe that this case falls within the exception to the exhaustion principle announced in Layton v. Carson, 479 F.2d 1275 (5th Cir. 1973).
The majority’s assertion that the Supreme Court of Florida may somehow revise its judgment of the validity of § 877.03 does not comport with the series of state and federal decisions involving this statute. In Severson v. Duff, 322 F.Supp. 4 (M.D.Fla.1970), the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida declared that the provision was both overbroad and vague on its face in violation of the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Since that decision, Florida’s court of highest jurisdiction has considered the statute in question at least four times and has never reached a decision consistent with Severson. In In re Fuller, 255 So.2d 1 (Fla.1971) and Gonzales v. City of Belle Glade, 287 So.2d 669 (Fla.1973), the state supreme court found that the statute was unconstitutional as applied to the individual defendants in those cases but declined to declare it invalid on its face. In State v. Magee, 259 So.2d 139 (1972), the Supreme Court of Florida considered a vagueness challenge to § 877.03 and determined simply that the “terms ‘public decency’ and ‘corrupt the public morals’ are terms of general understanding” and therefore concluded flatly that § 877.03 is constitutional. The Court reaffirmed this analysis in Bradshaw v. State, 286 So.2d 4 (Fla.1973) and declared also that the statute was not overly broad. Bradshaw explicitly rejected the logic of Se-verson v. Duff, noting that “a decision of a federal trial court, while persuasive if well-reasoned, is not by any means binding on the courts of a state.” 286 So.2d at 6.
We have recently declared § 877.03 to be facially unconstitutional. Wiegand v. Seaver, 504 F.2d 303 (5th Cir. 1974). The majority suggests that our Wiegand decision may prompt the Florida Supreme Court to revise its well established position. In view of the state judiciary’s reluctance to adopt the Se-verson analysis, I find this willingness to await the impact of Wiegand on the Florida courts inappropriate.
It is particularly significant that in Wiegand, in regard to the exhaustion issue, the state stipulated that state appellate review would be futile. While no such concession was made in this case, I find no recent change in Florida law to detract from the accuracy of that stipulation. Nor can I accept the majority’s suggestion that the stipulation may have lost its vitality in view of the subsequent decision in Gonzales v. City of Belle Glade, 287 So.2d 669 (Fla.1973). The convictions in that case were reversed merely because of an unconstitutional application of the statute, not facial invalidity as we found in Wiegand. The Gonzales court held merely that the record did not support a finding that the defendant’s conduct had violated the statute. The holding in a sense narrowed the construction of the statute by stating that it does not proscribe conduct which constitutes a mere “annoyance” to the public, but in Wiegand, we explicitly *65rejected the state’s contention that Gonzales sufficiently narrowed the construction of the statute to comply with the Supreme Court’s mandate in Gooding v. Wilson, 405 U.S. 518, 92 S.Ct. 1103, 31 L.Ed.2d 408 (1972). And even if the Gonzales interpretation mitigates the overbreadth problem, it does nothing to shield the statute from a due process vagueness challenge.
The majority states that the Gonzales court, “[hjaving reversed on the unconstitutional application of § 877.03, . declined to reach the issue of its constitutionality vel non.” While the Gonzales opinion did conclude with this statement, it begins with the emphatic and unequivocal observation that the statute is not facially defective:
This' Court has consistently upheld the validity of the challenged statute, most recently in Bradshaw v. State, 286 So.2d 4 . . . and prior thereto in State v. Magee, 259 So.2d 139 (Fla.1972). Nothing has occurred to warrant receding from those opinions. (emphasis added).
In view of this statement, I cannot join in my brothers’ conclusion that the Gonzales opinion “persuades us that Florida may change its position with respect to the statute.”
I, of course, share my brothers’ concern for the values of federalism and comity which, in normal circumstances, preclude federal court interference with state criminal proceedings. Yet the general prohibitions of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971), are not apposite in this case since an injunction against the trial in state court would fall within the “protective jurisdiction” exception of the Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2283. While the Act generally prohibits a federal court from enjoining state proceedings, it permits injunctions “to protect or effectuate its judgments.” The statute in this case has been declared facially unconstitutional in two federal forums. Florida’s highest court has demonstrated no inclination to accept these judgments. Comity does not require citizens of a state to submit to a state criminal trial in circumstances when the state itself has recently stipulated that exhaustion of state remedies would be futile and when two federal courts have declared the act in question unconstitutional prior to the state prosecution. Comity does not reach that far. In these circumstances, the judgment of the district court is appropriate and should be affirmed.