Court Opinion

ID: 9425721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:34.244566+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:57.278818
License: Public Domain

Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
with whom Mr. Justice White and Mr. Justice Rehnquist join, concurring in the result in part and dissenting in part.
On June 1, 1966, appellee United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (the union), called a strike of farmworkers in Starr County, Texas. After the strike collapsed a year later the union and six individuals active in the strike1 brought this action in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas against five Texas Rangers, the Sheriff, two Deputy Sheriffs, and a Special Deputy of Starr County, Texas', and a Starr County Justice of the Peace, alleging that the defendants unlawfully suppressed the plaintiffs and the class of union members and sympathizers they purported to represent in the exercise of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of free speech and association during the strike.2 The suppression was alleged to have been caused in part through the enforcement of six Texas statutes which plaintiffs claimed to have been unconstitutional. • The District Court, convened as a *822three-judge court, agreed with plaintiffs- as to five of the statutes3 and declared them to be unconstitutional and enjoined their enforcement. The District Court also entered an. injunction prohibiting acts of misconduct by defendants and those associated with them. 347 F. Supp. 605 (1972). The five Texas Rangers -appealed the District 'Court’s Judgment to this Court. We noted probable jurisdiction. 411 U. S. 963 (1973).,
The Court today vacates the judgment of the District Court as it deals with the relief granted against the enforcement of the statutes, and .remands for further findings and for reconsideration, in' the case of the relief granted with respect to two of the statutes, in light of Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974). In so doing the Court avoids-significant legal issues which are fairly presented in this appeal and which must be resolved now. They deserve full treatment for. the benefit not only of the District Court on remand but of other courts that must wrestle with the myriad problems presented in applying the doctrine of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). I undertake to deal with some of those issues. The Court neither accepts nor rejects my reasoning and' ultimate resolution of the issues; the majority simply chooses not to reach the issues. I, therefore,' concur only in the result of the remand. The Court also affirms the decree granting injunctive relief against police misconduct as slightly modified to reflect the remand. For the reasons stated, below I dissent, from that result.
I
The facts as found by the District Court are not in-dispute. A. review of those facts is • necessary for an *823understanding of some of the difficult legal issues in this appeal.
(a) Ón June 8,1966, one Eugene Nelson, a strike leader, was taken into custody and detained for four hours without any charges being filed against, him.; While in custody he was questioned , about his strike activities and informed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would be investigating him. regarding alleged threats of violence against the local courthouse and buses used to transport Mexican farmworkers to their jobs. When taken into custody, Nelson was at an international bridge attempting to persuade workers to join the strike.
(b) Another union leader, Raymond Chandler, was arrested on October 12, 1966, at a picketing site when he refused to obey an order to disperse and became involved in an altercation using loud and vociferous language to a deputy sheriff of Starr County. Chandler. was apparently arrested for violating Tex. Penal Code, Art. 474, the disturbing-the-peace - statute'. Bond was set at $500 although- the maximum punishment for violation of Art. 474 is a $200 fine. Two of Chandler’s friends who came to the courthouse to make bond were verbally abused and threatened with arrest by deputy sheriffs..
(c) On October 24, 1966, a deputy sheriff used violence and the threat of deadly force to subdue the president of the local union who, while under arrest and in custody in a courthouse, had just shouted out “viva la huelga” with some fellow arrestees.
(d) On November 9, 1966, the Texas Rangers, who had by this time been called in to help keep peace and order during the pendency of the strike, served, a warrant of arrest on a Reynaldo De La Cruz, charging a violation of Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 5154f, on November 3, 1966, when members of the union picketed produce packing sheds located on Missouri Pacific Rail*824road tracks. While De La Cruz was under arrest two Texas Rangers made anti-union statements to the arrestee.
(e) Charges were filed' by a deputy sheriff against Reynaldo De La Cruz on December 28, 1966, for impersonating an officer by wearing a badge in and around the union hall: The deputy had not witnessed the offense; the badge was of the shield type, while sheriff's deputies and Texas Rangers wore badges- in the shape of stars. .The deputy who filed the charges admitted that he was aware of his own knowlédge that similar badges had been worn by De La Cruz and another when directing traffic at. Union functions. Also on that date Librado De La Cruz attempted to grab a nonstriking farm employee by the coat, and was arrested immediately and charged with assault.
(f) On the evening of January 26, 1967, about 20 union supporters were gathered at the Starr County. Courthouse to conduct a peaceful prayer vigil in protest of arrests of union members earlier that day. Two members of the group mounted the courthouse steps, and when the group was ordered by a sheriff's deputy to leave.the courthouse grounds, the two on the steps refused and were arrested for unlawful assembly, apparently in violation of Tex. Penal Code, Art. 439. One of the two arrested was Gilbert Padilla, the first of the named plaintiffs to enter the chronology. The other was a minister.
(g) On February 1, 1967, nine persons were arrested and charged with disturbing the peace,- apparently in violation of Tex. Penal Code, Art. 474, for exhorting field laborers to quit work.
(h) Three months later, on May 11, 1967, other ¿vents occurred: appellant Captain A. Y. Allee of the Texas Rangers informed picketing strikers that he could get them *825a job within 10 minutes at the union-demanded wage. Also on that day a Texas Ranger shoved two persons connected with the strike, including one of the named plaintiffs, David Lopez. Both'of those shoved attempted to file charges of assault but the county attorney determined that there was insufficient evidence to go forward with the complaint.
(i) On the following day, May 12, 1967, strikers were allowed to peacefully picket in accordance with Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 5154d, the mass picketing statute, and were allowed to depart after being detained for a short period of time at the picketing site.
(j) On May 12, 1967, Eugene Nelson was arrested for threatening the life of certain Texas Rangers although appellant Allee did not take the threat seriously, and a bond was not accepted until tax records could be checked following the weekend, although there was no valid reason for waiting since the deputy sheriff to whom the bond was tendered knew full well that the surety was a landowner and a person of substance in Starr County.
(k) On May 26, 1967, 14 persons were arrested for trespassing. The charge was later changed to unlawful assembly, and this charge was superseded by a secondary picketing and boycott charge. Ten persons were arrested when they allegedly attempted to block a train carrying produce. . The second group of four persons was arrested later in the evening. The four were apparently arrested for unsuccessfully encouraging bystanders to picket and were ultimately charged with secondary picketing and boycotting upon the complaint of a railroad special agent who had left the scene prior to the events which caused this second series of arrests. Included in the group was Magdaleno Dimas, another named plaintiff. The findings recite that a Mrs. Krueger, another one of this second group, was arrested “either for *826taking a picture of her husband's arrest or attempting to strike Captain Allee with her camera in her husband's defense.” 347 F. Supp., at 615. The four arrestees in the second group were roughly handled. The findings concerning this entire incident are not set out with clarity.
(l) On May 31, 1967, the Texas Rangers arrested apparently 13 pickets for allegedly violating the mass picketing statute, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 5154d.
(m) On June 1, 1967, the Texas Rangers sought and arrested Magdaleno Dimas at the home of Kathy Baker, another named plaintiff, for allegedly having previously brandished a gun in a threatening manner in the presence of a special deputy of Starr County. ' Two other persons were arrested for assisting Dimas to evade arrest. Benjamin Rodriguez, a third named plaintiff, was arrested at the same time the police apprehended Dimas, although the District Court does not explain why Rodriguez was arrested. The arrests of Dimas and Rodriguez were found by the District Court to have been accomplished in a brutal and violent fashion.
,(n) While the strike was in progress the Starr County Sheriff's office assisted in the regular distribution of a strongly anti-union newspaper. Each week deputies would pick up and then locally distribute copies of the paper.
II
In this ~part;;-T consider the problems of mootness and standing. In Part III,. I discuss Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), and its.applicability to the facts of .the instant case. The injunction against police misconduct is dealt with in Part IV. ■ •
The principal relief granted by the District Court was the declaration that five Texas statutes are unconstitutional and the injunction against their continued enforcement. The District Court determined- on the *827facts as it found them that appellees had overcome the burden imposed by Younger v. Harris, supra, and the court was, therefore, empowered to reach the merits of the constitutional challenges to the statutes. Although the District -Court recited evidence as to arrests and charges having been filed, the court did not make explicit findings of specific prosecutions pending at the time of the commencement of the action or at the time of its. decision. Since the facts of possible prosecutions pending now and at the commencement of the action are cru- . cial to matters of mootness, standing, and the applicability of Younger v. Harris, we should remand to the District Court for further findings in this area..
Three of the statutes held to be unconstitutional by-•the District Court have been repealed by the Texas Legislature in a new codification of • the Penal Code. Articles 439 (unlawful assembly), 474 (breach of the peace), and 482 (abusive language) can no longer be employed to arrest appellees or members of their class. On. remand. the District Court should first determine whether appellees had standing to commence this aCtion-respecting these three statutes. “It must be alleged that the plaintiff 'has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury’ as the result of the challenged statute or. official conduct. Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 488 (1923).” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488, 494 (1974). Even if by the operation, i. e., arrest and prosecution, or threatened operation of the. statutes, one or more appellees had standing to commence this action, the' District Court will be obliged to resolve the “question as to the continuing existence of a live and acute. controversy.” Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S., at 459. (Emphasis in original.) See also Indiana Employment Division v. Burney, 409 U. S. 540 (1973). Since the statutes have been, re*828pealed threats of future prosecution can no longer suffice to establish a live controversy. The injury that appellees faced and face must then result from pending prosecutions under each of the challenged statutes now repealed.
The two other statutes held unconstitutional by the District Court, Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Arts. 5154d and 5Í54f, have not been repealed, and I cannot say, on this record, that the possibility of future prosecutions is or is not real.. The District Court should examine the standing of appellees to challenge the constitutionality of these statutes under the same guidelines as applicable to the three repealed statutes, except that prosecution remains hypothetically possible under these two statutes. See Steffel v. Thompson, supra, at 459.
We have recently held in O’Shea v. Littleton, supra, at 498, that standing must be personal to and satisfied by “those who seek -to invoke the power of federal courts.” See also Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U. S. 31, 32-33 (1962); Long v. District of Columbia, 152 U. S. App. D. C. 187, 190, 469 F. 2d 927, 930 (1972). If an individual named appellee was and is.subject to prosecution under one of the challenged statutes, that appellee would have standing to challenge the constitutionality of that statute. If an individual named appellee was and is threatened with prosecution under one of' the extant statutes,.that appellee would have standing to challenge its constitutionality. Prosecutions instituted against persons who are not named plaintiffs cannot form .the basis for standing of those who bring an action. In particular, a named plaintiff cannot acquire standing to sue by bringing his action on behalf of others' who suffered injury which would have afforded them standing had they been named plaintiffs; it bears repeating that a person cannot predicate standing on injury which he *829does not .share. Standing cannot be acquired through the back door of a class action. O’Shea v. Littleton, supra; Bailey v. Patterson, supra, at 32-33.4
In addition to any- individual named appellees the union itself may have, standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statutes. The Court has long recognized that the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and assembly have an important role to play in labor disputes. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 102 (1940); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 532 (1945). I agree with the Court that unions, as entities, in addition to union members and organizers, are entitled to the benefit of those guarantees and that a union may sue under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 to enforce its First Amendment, rights.
Here the appellee union alleged in the complaint that it was deprived of its constitutional rights of free speech and assembly by the actions of defendants in enforcing the challenged Texas statutes. If,, as claimed by the union, union members were subject to unlawful arrest and threats of arrest in their First Amendment protected organizational activity on behalf of .the union, .the union would have derivatively suffered or have been in the position to suffer derivatively real injury and 'would have standing to complain of that injury and bring this action.5 If a person who was a member of the. union both at the time of that person’s arrest and at the present time *830would have, standing individually to challenge the constitutionality of one of the five statutes, then the Union itself would have such standing, since the inability of the union member to communicate freely restricts the ability of the union to communicate. As the Court states, ante, at 819 n. 13, a union “can act only through its members.” 6
III
(A)
The District Court on remand will be faced with' tbe issue of the applicability of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), to appellees. Since standing and the continued existence of a live controversy as to the action in relation to the three repealed statutes depend on the pendency of prosecutions under each of the statutes, it will be necessary for-appellees to meet Younger standards to reach the constitutional merits of any of these statutes.
To the extent that.they can prove standing, the individual appellees will be seeking federal court interference in their own state court prosecutions. The unipn, to the extent that it has standing, will be seeking interference with state Court prosecutions of its members. There is an identity of interest between the union and its prosecuted members; the union may seek relief only because of the prosecutions of' its members,7 and *831only by insuring that such prosecutions cease may the union vindicate the constitutional interests which it claims are violated. The union stands in the place of its prosecuted members even as it asserts its own constitutional rights. The same comity considerations apply whether the action is brought in the name of the individually arrested union member or in.the name of the union, and there is no inequity in requiring the union to abide by the same legal standards as its members in suing in federal court. If the union were unable to meet the requirements of Younger, its members subject to prosecution would have a full opportunity to vindicate the First Amendment rights of both the union and its members in the state court proceedings. Any other result would allow the easy circumvention of Younger by. individuals who could assert their claims of First Amendment violations through an unincorporated association of those same individuals if the association is immune from Younger burdens.
' This result is not contrary to that reached in Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974), where the arrest of one demonstrator was not imputed for Younger purposes to petitioner who brought suit for declaratory relief against the application of the state statute under which the other demonstrator was arrested and petitioner was only threatened with arrest. .There was no indication in that case that petitioner and-the; arrestee were associated otherwise than in the distribution of antiwar handbills. Furthermore, in Stefiel, the petitioner departed to avoid arrest while his companion in handbilling stayed. The joint activity of petitioner and his companion in Stefiel ceased prior to the arrest of the companion. Finally, there is no indication that the arrestee would seek to or be able to vindicate petitioner’s rights in the criminal proceeding, and on such a factual showing it would be unfair to re*832qüire petitioner to await the outcome of state' court proceedings he was not a party to and had no apparent connection with. No such unfairness inheres in this situation where the union might be required to await state crimi-, nal trials of its members to vindicate rights it holds in common with those members and was deprived of derivatively only through prosecutions directed at those membefs.8
• The process of determining when Younger applies becomes more complex when dealing with the two extant ■statutes. If there are state court prosecutions against the individual appellees or the union under these statutes then Younger requirements must be met. If there are prosecutions against members of the union under these .statutes (and the union asserts standing derivatively) then the Younger hurdle must be met for the reasons stated. If standing of - individual appellees or the union to challenge one of the statutes is básed solely on threatened prosecutions, and the relief pursued below with respect to that statute is declaratory only, then Younger does? not apply. Steffel v. Thompson, supra. If appellees seek, injunctive relief with respect to the operation or enforcement of a statute for the violation of which prosecutions are threatened, the question of. whether Younger applies has not beerf'answered by this Court. Steffel v. Thompson, supra, at 463. Since'the issue-may well not- arise on remand it would be premature now to attempt to resolve it.. The development of what relief was and still is requested by appellees is-a matter *833best left to the District Court on remand.9 Finally, if the union sues on the basis of injury to its members, then since, as to a statute challenged, one member must, if suing on his own. behalf, meet the requirements of Younger, the union must do so, even though other of its members would not be so burdened if they had brought suit individually. The requirements of Younger are not to be evaded by artificial niceties.
'(B)
- The next step in the analysis is to define the burdens imposed by Younger v. Harris. There we held that before a federal court can interfere with state criminal proceedings, great and immediate irreparable injury must be shown “above and beyond that associated with the defense of a single prosecution brought in good faith.” 401 U. S., at 48. The injury must include, except in extremely rare cases, “the usúal prerequisites of bad faith and harassment.” Id., at 53. In Younger the Court made clear that the mere fact • that the- statute under which the federal court plaintiff is being proceeded against is unconstitutional on its face “does not in itself justify an injunction against good-faith attempts to *834enforce it.” Id., at 54. The Court described as “important and necessary” the State’s task of enforcing statutes which may have an incidental inhibiting effect on First Amendment rights, “against socially harmful conduct that the State believes in good faith to be punishable under its laws and the Constitution.” Id., at 52.
Younger principles not only mandate federal court abstention in the case of good-faith enforcement of facially unconstitutional statutes, but also require that claims of unconstitutionality, other than facial invalidity, be presented, in the first instance, to the state court in which; the criminal prosecution involving the claimed constitutional deprivation is .pending. In Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82 (1971), the United State's District Court upheld the challenged Louisiana anti-obscenity statute as valid on its face10 but ruled /that the arrests of the state court defendañts-federal court plaintiffs and the seizure of the allegedly obscene materials were invalid because of a lack of a prior adversary hearing on the character of the materials. We hejd such interference to be improper:
“The propriety of arrests and the admissibility of evidence in ,state criminal prosecutions are ordinarily matters to be resolved by state tribunals, see Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U. S. 117 (1951), subject, of course, to review by certiorari or appeal in this Court or, in a proper case, on federal habeas corpus. Here Ledesma was free to present his federal constitutional claims concerning arrest and seizure of materials or other matters to the Louisiana courts in the manner permitted in that State. Only in cases of proven harassment or prosecutions undertaken by state officials in bad faith without hope of obtaining a valid conviction and perhaps in other extraordinary *835circufhstances where irreparable injury can.be shown is federal injunctive relief against pending state prosecutions appropriate. . . . There is nothing in the record before us to suggest that Louisiana officials undertook these prosecutions other than in a good-faith attempt to enforce the State’s criminal laws.” Id., at 84-85.
A state court is presumed to be capable of fulfilling its “solemn responsibility ... 'to guard, enforce, and protect every right granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637 (1884).” Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S., at 460-461. Yet a state court cannot effectively fulfill its responsibility when the prosecutorial authorities take deliberate action, in bad faith, unfairly to deprive a person of a reasonable and adequate opportunity to make application in the state courts for vindication of his constitutional rights. When such an individual, deprived .of meaningful access to the state courts, faces irreparable injury to constitutional rights of great and immediate magnitude, either in the immediate suit or in. the substantial likelihood of “repeated prosecutions to which he will be subjected,” Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S., at 49, and the injury demands prompt'relief, federal courts are not prevented by considerations of comity from granting the extraordinary remedy of interference in pending state criminal prosecutions.
A breakdown of the state judicial system which would allow federal intervention was the allegation of appellants in Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U. S. 479 (1965). In that case appellants had. offered to prove, inter alia, that the state prosecutor was holding public hearings at which were being used photostatic copies of illegally seized evidence, which evidence had already been ordered suppressed by a state court. It was alleged-further that *836the prosecutor was threatening to use other copies of the illegally seized documents before the grand jury to obtain indictments. If proved, the allegations in Dotnbrowski made out a clear case of a breakdown in the chbcks and balances in the state criminal justice system. The courts had lost control of a prosecutor embarked on an alleged campaign of harassment of' appellants, designed to discourage the exercise of their constitutional rights. Under such circumstances federal intervention would be authorized.
To meet the Younger test the federal plaintiff must show manifest bad faith and injury that is great, immediate, and irreparable, constituting harassment of the plaintiff in the ex,ercise of his constitutional rights, and resulting in a deprivation of ‘meaningful access to' the state courts. The federal plaintiff must prove both bad faith and requisite injury.' In judging whether a prosecution has been commenced in bad faith, the federal court is ■entitled to take into consideration the i.ull range of circumstances surrounding the proseeutions which the federal plaintiff would have the district court interfere with: A federal court must be cautious, however, and recognize that our criminal justice system' works only by according broad discretion to those charged to enforce laws. Cf. Santobello v. New York, 404 U. S. 257 (1971). In this regard, prosecutors will often, in good faith, .choose not to prosecúte or to discontinue prosecutions for entirely legitimate reasbns. An individual, once arrested, does not have a “right” to proceed to trial in order to make 'coiistitutional .claims respecting his arrest. Conversely, prosecutors may proceed to trial with less than an “open and shut” case against the defendants.- In Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U. S. 611, 621 (1968), the Court, nóted:>
“[T]he question for the District Court was not the *837guilt or innocence of the persons charged; the question was whether the satute was enforced against them with no expectation of convictions but only to discourage exercise of protected rights. The mere possibility of erroneous application of the. statute does not amount 'to the irreparable injury necessary to justify a disruption of orderly state proceedings.’ Dombrowski v. Pfister, supra, at 485. The issue of guilt or innocence is for the state court at the criminal trial; the State was not required to prove appellants guilty in the federal proceeding to escape the finding that the State had no expectation of securing valid convictions.” (Footnote omitted.)
One step removed from the decision of the prosecutor to prosecute is the decision of the policeman to arrest. The bad-faith nature of a prosecution may sometimes be inferred from the common activity of the prosecutor and the police to employ arrests and prosecutions unlawfully to discourage the exercise of civil rights. The conclusion that the prosecutor and police are acting as one to deprive persons of their rights should not be inferred too readily on the basis of police action alone. Just as is the case with prosecutors, the police possess broad discretion in enforcing the criminal laws. Police cannot reasonably be expected to act upon a realización that a law that they are asked to enforce may be unconstitutional. Even when police cross the line of legality as they enforce statutes they may not be acting willfully; the precise contours of probable cause, like the Fourth Amendment’s stricture against unreasonable search and seizure, are far from clear.. When a policeman willfully engages in patently illegal conduct in the course of an arrest there still should be clear and convincing proof, before bad faith can be found, that this was part of a common plan or scheme, in concert with the prosecutorial au*838thorities, to deprive plaintiffs of their constitutional rights. Willful, random acts of brutality by police, although abhorrent in themselves, and subject to civil remedies, will not form a basis for a finding of bad faith. The police may, of course, embark on a campaign of harassment of an individual or a group of persons without the knowledge or assistance of the prosecutorial authorities. The remedy in such a case would not lie in enjoining state prosecutions, which would provide no real relief, but in reaching down through the State’s criminal justice system to deal directly with the abuses at the primary law enforcement level. Cl. Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F. 2d 197 (CA4 1966). See, infra.
Unless the injury confronting a state criminal defendant is great, immediate, and irreparable, and constitutes harassment, the prosecution cannot- be interfered with under Younger. The severity of the standard reflects the extreme reluctance of federal courts to interfere with pending state criminal prosecutions.
If the federal court plaintiff seeks injunctive or'declaratory relief based on claimed facial invalidity of a statute, the injury may derive not only from the prosecutions the plaintiff is currently facing where a violation of that statute is alleged, but also from the probability of future prosecutions under that statute. Evidence of multiple arrests and prosecutions of persons other than the federal plaintiff under that statute may well bear on the likelihood of future arrests and prosecutions of the federal plaintiff. Á state criminal defendant seeking re-lie t against more than one statute, must prove the requisite degree of injury separately for each statute he challenges. Any other rule would encourage, insubstantial and multiple attacks on the constitutionality of .state statutes by persons ■ hoping to meet the strict Standards of injury by accumulating effects under many *839state provisions in order to reach the constitutional merits of only one or a few. Furthermore, the considerations of comity which underlie Younger would be ill served if a federal court were to employ a showing of bad faith and harassment respecting prosecutions brought under one facially challenged statute as a pretext for searching a State’s statutory code .for unconstitutional provisions to strike down. Cf. Boyle v. Landry, 401 U. S. 77, 81 (1971).
The same rule must, perforce, apply when the relief sought is limited in scope, by way of constitutional challenges to statutes as applied, to interference only with specific prosecutions. Since no relief is requested which could affect the future operation or enforcement óf a statute (as would be the .case when a statute is challenged on its face), the injury must derive solely from the imminence of the single prosecution. The possibility of future arrests, under color of any state statutes, is irrelevant to proof of injury from the challenged prosecution. It will be the rare case, indeed, where a single prosecution provides the quantum of harm, that will justify interferehce. On the other hand, in the case of an attack on the facial constitutionality of a statute, the likely prospect of multiple prosecutions, brought also in bad faith and without hope of conviction, , for the violation of the same statute which formed the basis for the pending prosecutions of the federal court plaintiff, might well constitute a sufficient showing of harm to justify a federal court’s decision to reach the constitutionality of the statute..
A special problem in proof of Younger injury arises with the Union: shall the.Union be permitted to.aggregate the injuries which all its members will-reasonably suffer under the operation of statutes, or must the injury test be satisfied independently by one person who was and is a member of the Union? For the reason ex*840pressed above as to why prosecutions of union members should be attributed to the. union for Younger purposes — that any other rule would allow of easy and unfair circumvention of Younger — the necessary injury 'must be confronted by any single member.11 If no single member faces Younger injury, then the union, which operates through its ■ members, cannot realistically be said to face such injury.
With these principles in mind it is.appropriate to. turn to the facts in the instant case. The District Court assumed that Younger was applicable, and held, on the basis of the facts that it found, that the requirements of Younger had been met. The District Court‘then proceeded to the constitutional merits of each of the challenged statutes. The District Court’s Younger holding was in error.
There is no reason'for deferring review of the District Court’s legal conclusion that Younger was satisfied,although 'the' Court would, apparently, allow appellees to have a second chance at proving .this element of their case. Although the trial, 'of this action took place in 1968, the District Court’s decision had not been handed down by the time Younger was issued in 1971. In September 1971, the parties were requested by the District Court to file supplemental briefs on the' impact of Younger on this cause. In their briefs, appellants grgued that the federal court was'required under Younger to abstain, while appellees argued that Younger did not apply to the instant case, and, alternatively, that if Younger did apply the test of Younger *841had been met. Appellees did not request hearings to adduce further proof relating to Younger bad faith and harassment. There is, therefore, no- basis for reopening the matter on remand, and taking up valuable judicial time relitigating an issue as to which both sides have had their day in court. Failure to decide now whether appellees have met the Younger requirements with respect to challenges to the five statutes whose validity remains in issue would cause needless delay in a lawsuit already far removed in time from the events which precipitated it. With respect to the three repealed statutes, if the action is not moot appellees will be met with a Younger burden they have been unable to satisfy. With respect to the two extant statutes, the action will be moot, appellees will have failed to satisfy Younger, or appellees' will not have had to satisfy Younger, only having been threatened with prosecutions. In "any case, resolution of the Younger issues in this case at this time by the Court will expedite proceedings on remand and remove from this suit controverted matters ripe for judicial determination. '
Appellees 'can, of course, seek to further amend their amended complaint to make further allegations of fact regarding the events which took place during the one-year strike, and the District Court will then have to judge whether after nearly seven years “justice so requires” the amendment. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15 (a).
The finding's of fact by the District Court do not justify, the legal conclusion that any of the appellees were in danger of' suffering harm, that was great, immediate, and irreparable, and constituted harassment, with respect to any one of the statutes. Such a showing must be made by each appellee separately regarding each statute. I now turn to an analysis -of the facts, first on *842the. injury-harassment issue, aiid then to determine whether there was bad faith.
The only persons found to have been arrested for violating Tex. Penal Code, Art. 439 (unlawful assembly), were the two leaders of the January 26, 1967, prayer vigil. For five months thereafter no arrests took place under this statute. At the end of May 1967, 14 other persons12 were arrested for trespassing, and later charged with unlawful assembly.. These latter charges were pending only for three days before being dropped and replaced with charges of secondary picketing and boycotting. The evidence relating to Art. 439 is clearly insufficient to sustain any inference that any appellee, including the union, faced the prospect of repeated arrests in the future under this statute. There is no showing that having to defend the state criminal actions instituted as a result of the arrests that were made under the statute would be in any manner unusually onerous and seriously damaging to any of the arrestees. They were traditional arrests with traditional burdens of defending against charges.
On two occasions arrests were made for violating Tex. Penal Code, Art. 474 (breach of the peace): of Raymond Ghandler on October 12, 1966, and of nine persons (apparently not including Mr. Chandler13) on February 1, 1967. Thereafter, to June 1967, no arrests were made and no charges were filed, for violations of this provision.. No inference can be made that any person faces the likelihood of repeated and unwarranted arrests under this statute. There is nothing in the-, findings to suggest and no reason to believe that the few prosecutions resulting from enforcement of this 'statute will *843result in any extraordinary hardship differing from that ordinarily associated with the usual defense of a criminal action.
It appears that five members of the Union were arrested for violating Tex. Penal Code, Art. 482 (abusive language) on January 26, 1967,- about midway through the strike.14 The absence of Younger injury is even clearer in the challenge to this statute.
Another example of a single instance of enforcement of a statute is the arrest of 13. persons, on one occasion, May 31, 1967, for violating Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 5154d (mass picketing). The facts are totally insufficient for a finding of the serious injury required under Younger.
Fourteen persons who were arrested for trespassing on May 26, 1967, were later charged with unlawful assembly, but those charges were pending only for three days, at the end of which time the 14 were charged with violating Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 5154f, the secondary picketing and boycott provision. The only other time persons were charged with violating Art. 5154f was on November 9, 1966, when a complaint was filed against 10 persons for illegal picketing on November 3, 1966. The District Court does not challenge the grounds for issu\ng the complaint, but questions only the manner of the custody following the arrest of one of the 10, but that objectionable action had nothing whatever to do with the offense for which the individual was arrested. As with the four other statutes found unconstitutional, the test of serious in jury, under Younger is not met by such an inadequate showing of future harm.
Appellees also failed to prove that any prosecutions which might have resulted from these arrests were brought in bad faith. Very nearly all the evidence of *844bad faith found by the District Court relates to activities of the Texas Rangers and the Starr County Sheriff’s Office, not of the prosecutors. Evidence bearing on the -allegations of prosecutorial bad faith is restricted to three items: first, the District Court is mildly critical of an investigation, apparently inadequate, made by the County Attorney of Starr County into the shoving incident of May 11, 1967, and the subsequent decision not to go forward with the complaint which had been filed by .the two men who had been shoved; second, a prosecutor conceivably could have had something to do with the excessively high bond set after Raymond Chandler’s arrest on October 12, 1966, but there is no finding on this point; third, those arrested] on February 1, 1967, for disturbing the peace were informed by the Justice of the Peace, on instructions from the County Attorney, that if they ever appeared in that court again under the same charge they would have to post bond.15 The record does not contain a finding that prosecutions were brought and then promptly dropped; in one instance persons arrested for violating an unchallenged statute on May 26, 1967, were later charged first with violating Tex. Penal Code, Art. 439, a challenged statute, and subsequently with violating. Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Art. 5154f, also a challenged statute.
Nor can the isolated instances of police misconduct by Texas Rangers and Starr County Sheriff’s deputies found by the District Court turn a series.of prosécutions, apparently instituted in good faith (even assuming that all persons who were arrested are or were facing prosecutions as a result of their arrests), into a campaign of terror against the union which could only be remedied *845by recourse'to the federal courts. Excluding the distribution of the antiunion newspaper, which activity could hardly be said to have a direct and- immediate disruptive effect on daily picketing and other, organizational efforts of the Union, the District Court found only 12 days during this long controversy in which law enforcement or judicial officers óf Texas acted in an improper fashion in dealing with strikers or strike sympathizers; this is an average of one per month. One of the “abuses” found by the District Court was the shoving of two persons. On another occasion, May 26, 1967, a camera was confiscated, two men were held near a passing train, and four persons were “roughly handled,” 347 F, Supp., at 615, after their arrest by the Texas Rangers. All that happened ■on May 11, 1967, was that Captain Allee 16 of the Texas Rangers told picketing strikers that he could get them all jobs at the Union-demanded wage. “[Picketing occurred every day,” of the strike with the exception oí' Sundays, id., at 612, yet no allegedly harassing action was taken against the strikers after June 8; -1966, to October 12, 1966, a period .of over'four months, or after February 1,1967, to May 11, 1967, a period of over three months. Finally, it is not surprising that the. Texas Rangers and Sheriff’s deputies would have found occasions to enforce laws governing picketing, assembly, and the peace of the community, against persons who sought to attain their goals by picketing, assembling, and otherwise making themselves and their- cause heard in Starr County. Judging by the infrequency of occasions of enforcement of such laws the strike did not *846become an object of obsessive interest with the law enforcement personnel in Starr County.
In sum, the findings cannot be read as showing either bad faith or the requisite injury with respect to the operation and enforcement of any of the five challenged statutes. Appellees have totally failed to satisfy the .demands of Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971).
IV
The District Court not only declared five Texas statutes unconstitutional and enjoined their enforcement, but also issued an injunction against what I shall term “police misconduct.” The injunction against police misconduct is issued on behalf of the named plaintiffs and the class they represent,
“to-wit, the members of Plaintiff United Farm Workers Organizing • Committee, AFL-CIO, and all other persons who because of their sympathy for or voluntary support of the aims of said Plaintiff union have engaged in, are engaging in, or may hereafter-engage in peaceful picketing, peaceful assembly, or other organizational activities of or in support of said Plaintiff union or who may engage in concert of action with one or more of Plaintiffs for the solicitation of agricultural workers or others to join or make common cause with them in matters pertaining to the work and labor of agricultural workers.”
The injunction itself appears as paragraph 16 of the District Court’s Filial Judgment. This remarkable injunction reads in full as follows:
“16. It is further ordered, adjudged and decreed by the Court that Defendants, their successors, agents and employees, and persons acting in concert with them, are permanently enjoined and restrained *847from any of the following acts or conduct directed toward or applied to Plaintiffs and the persons they represent, to-wit:
“A. Using in any manner Defendants’ authority as peace officers for the purpose of preventing or discouraging peaceful organizational activities without adequate cause.
“B. Interfering by stopping, dispersing, arresting, or imprisoning any person, or by any other means, with picketing, assembling, solicitation, or organizational effort without adequate cause.
“C. Arresting any person without warrant or without probable cause which probable cause is accompanied by intention to present appropriate -written complaint to a court of competent jurisdiction.
“D. Stopping, dispersing, arresting or imprisoning' any person without adequate cause because of the arrest of some other person.
“E. As used in this Paragraph 16, Subparagraphs A, B and D above, the term ‘adequate cause’ shall mean (1) actual obstruction of a public or private passway, road, street, or entrance which actually causes unreasonable interference with ingress, egress, or flow of traffic; or (2) force or violence, or the threat of force or violence, actually committed by any person by his own conduct or by actually aiding, abetting, or participating in such conduct by another person; or (3) probable cause which may cause a Defendant to believe in good faith that one or more particular persons did violate a criminal law of the State of Texas other than those specific laws herein declared unconstitutional, or a municipal ordinance.”
This Court lacks jurisdiction to review this injunction on direct appeal from the District Court; but assuming *848this Court has jurisdiction over this portion of the final judgment, it should be remanded to the District Court along with the remainder of its judgment. For my part, if I were to rule on the merits of the injunction against police misconduct I would reverse.
(A)
The Court does not have jurisdiction on appeal over paragraph 16 of the Final Judgment. The proper course is to vacate and remand this portion of the District Court judgment for entry of a fresh judgment from which timely appeal can be - taken to the Court of Appeals for ,the Fifth Circuit. See Edelman v. Townsend, 412 U. 914, 915 (1973).
This Court may hear on appeal
“an order granting or denying, after notice and-hearing, an interlocutory or permanent injunction in any civil action, suit or proceeding required by any Act of.Congress to be heard and determined by a district court of three judges.” 28 U. S. C. § 1253.
Congress has provided, by 28 U. S. C. § 2281 that no interlocutory -or permanent injunction against the enforcement, operation, or execution of a state statute may be granted on the ground of unconstitutionality Unless the application for the injunction is heard and determined' by a three-judge district court.
“This Court has more than once stated that its jurisdiction under the Three-Judge Court Act is to be narrowly construed since ‘any loose construction of the requirements of [the Act] would defeat the purposes of Congress ... to keep within narrow confines our appellate docket.’ Phillips v. United States [312 U. S. 246,] 250.” Goldstein v. Cox, 396 U. S. 471, 478 (1970). In consonance with that philosophy in Public Service Comm’n v. Brashear Lines, 312 U. S. 621 (1941), *849the Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Mr. Justice Black, held that following the denial by a three-judge District Court-of the application for an injunction against an allegedly unconstitutional state statute, a single District Judge should have heard the motion to assess damages arising out of the temporary restraining order granted by a single District Judge ponding the hearing by the three-judge court on the injunction application.
“The limited statutory duties of the specially constituted three judge District Court had been fully performed before the motion for assessment of damages was filed. For § 266 of the Judicial Code provides for a hearing by three judges, instead of one district judge, only in connection with adjudication of a very narrow type of controversy — applications for temporary and permanent injunctions restraining state officials from enforcing state laws or orders made pursuant thereto upon the ground that the state- statutes- are repugnant to the Federal Constitution. ' The motion for damages raised questions not within the statutory purpose for. which the two additional judges had been called. Those questions were therefore for the consideration of the District Court in the exercise of its ordinary jurisdiction, and. .the three, judge requirement of § 266 had no application.” ''Id., at 625 (footnotes omitted).
The Court was careful to state that a three-judge court “has,jurisdiction to determine every question involved in the litigation pertaining to the prayer for an injunction, in order that a single lawsuit may afford final .and authoritative decision of the controversy .between the parties.” Id., at 625 n. 5.
We reaffirmed' our Brashear holding in Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82 (1971). In Perez the appellees were charged in informations filed in state court with vio*850lations of á Louisiana statute and a local parish ordinance. The three-judge Federal District Court “held” the state statute to be facially constitutional,17 but ruled that arrests and seizures of materials were invalid and entered a suppression order and required the return of the seized materials to the appellees. The District Court also expressed its view that the parish ordinance was invalid. The District Judge who initially referred the action to the three-judge court adopted that court’s view and declared the ordinance invalid. We refused to review the decision, concerning the local ordinance, stating:
“Even if an order granting a declaratory judgment against the ordinance had been entered by the three-judge court below (which'.it had not), that court would, have been acting in the capacity of a single-judge court. We held in Moody v. Flowers, 387 U. S. 97 (1967), that a three-judge court was not properly convened to consider the constitutionality of a statute of only local application, similar to a local ordinance. Under 28 U. S. C. § 1253 we have jurisdiction to consider on direct appeal only those civil actions ‘required ... to be heard and determined’ by. a three-judge court. Since the constitutionality of this parish ordinance was not ‘re-' quired ... to be heard and determined’ by a three-judge panel, there is no jurisdiction in this Court to review that question.
“The fact that a three-judge court was properly convened in this ■ case to consider the injunctive relief requested against the enforcement of the state statute, does not give this Court jurisdiction on direct appeal over other controversies where there is no independent jurisdictional base. Even where *851a three-judge court is properly convened to consider one controversy between two parties, the parties are not necessarily entitled to a three-judge court and a direct appeal on other controversies that may exist between them. See Public Service Comm’n v. Brashear Freight Lines, 306 U. S. 204 (1939).” 401 U. S., at 86-87.18 (Footnote omitted.)
Brashear Lines and Perez are authority for the proposition that a three-judge district court convened under *852•§ 2281 must restrict itself narrowly to the adjudication of those matters which bear directly on the grant or denial of injunctive relief against state statutes. So long as the constitutional claim is pot insubstantial the three-judge court may consider noncoiistitutional claims urged alternatively in support of the injunctive relief, and we have jurisdiction to review such nonconstitutional portions of the district court’s decision. Florida Lime Growers v. Jacobsen, 362 U. S. 73 (1960).19 Indeed, a three-judge district court would be required to give priority to consideration of a statutory, claim over a constitutional claim. Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 402 (1970). However, in ruling on nonconstitutional challenges to the operation of state statutes, .the district court remains concerned with the same‘form of relief— injunctive — directed at the sáme state statutes, as it would, if it were ruling on the constitutional claim, and is not, therefore, involved' in solving any “other controversy” between the parties. • Perez, supra. Similarly, the only noninjunctive relief regularly granted by three-judge district courts is a declaratory judgment of uncpn-' stitutionality. Not only is a finding of unconstitutionality a necessary concomitant to the enjoining of the operation and enforcement of a state statute on constitutional grounds, but a declaration, of unconstitutioriality does not reach in its effect beyond the-same state statutes which are subject to the injunction.
*853A three-judge district court should not venture beyond these two nárrow and necessary exceptions to the general rule that a three-judge court is not required to hear any matters beyond the constitutional challenge to the statute which led'to its convening. For example, a three-judge court should not retain jurisdiction to assess damages, Brashear Lines, supra, or to insure enforcement of a decree which it entered adjudging the statute unconstitutional. Cf. Hamilton v. Nakai, 453 F. 2d 152, 160-161 (CA9 1971), cert. denied, 406 U. S. 945 (1972).
Any other rule would
“encumber the district court, at a time when district court calendars are overburdened, by consuming the time of three federal judges in a matter that was not required to be determined by. a three-judge court.” Rosado v. Wyman, supra, at 403.
And any other rule would burden this Court through the unnecessary expansion of our jurisdiction on direct appeal. The District Court’s broad injunction against police misconduct in this case without even a semblance of reasoned analysis provides a compelling example of the need for a review by an intermediate appellate’ tribunal to sort out the facts and' issues necessary for review here; should that occur. This case presents a glaring example of an undue burden placed on this Court: to wrestle with difficult legal issues on the basis of a record inadequately digested and analyzed by the. District Court and untouched by the scrutiny of. the Court of Appeals. From its findings of fact the District Court has drawn almost impressionistic conclusions'regarding the scope and. impact of. the perceived abuses.of the Texas law enforcement authorities.. It is as if the District Court viewed the conduct of the police and prosecutors as directed against'one individual, rather than many, over a brief period of time, rather than á year. This *854is an instance where the remoteness of intervening appellate review would have provided a salutary perspective on the factually complex and impassioned debate waged in' the trial court.
Even if the general rule were other than that no ancillary relief in aid of injunctive relief should issue from a three-judge court, the injunction against police misconduct in this case could not be considered to be ancillary to the primary relief so as to confer jurisdiction upon this Court on direct appeal. Enjoining enforcement of state statutes is a far different enterprise from enjoining spe7 cific police misconduct; a separate review of the first by -this Court and the second by a court of appeals would not result in a fragmented appeal. In the application' of the Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), test of “bad faith and harassment” a court would look to certain specific types of police and prosecutorial misconduct as a predicate for reaching the merits, of the constitutional attack against state statutes for the violation of which persons are being subject to prosecution. A finding of police harassment-necessary for the issuance of an injunction against police misconduct is not quasi-jurisdictional as with ' Younger, but is á determination on the merits. Under Younger a court is concerned, principally with police and prosecutorial misconduct which denies to a person subject to the state laws a fair opportunity to have his challenges to those laws heard by the staté courts, whereas, in weighing.whether to issue an injunction against police misconduct, a court would likely be concerned solely with police misconduct which itself denies persons their constitutional rights. While there may be some overlap of facts possibly relevant to the quasi-jurisdictional Younger v. Harris determination and to the'merits of whether to grant an injunction against police misconduct, there would be no identity of *855proof, the legal standards to apply to the facts would not be the samé, and the nature and object of each determination would be' different.
. Thus, an(injunction against police misconduct would not be so related to injunctive relief against the operation of unconstitutional state statutes as to require a three-judge district court, even if Brashear and Perez did not apply to foreclose our consideration of paragraph 16 of the District Court’s judgment. Upon the issuance of the declaratory and injunctive relief against the five Texas statutes the three-judge District Court should have dissolved itself and referred-the case .to the single District Judge to whom the case was originally assigned for whatever further proceedings were necessary.
(B) ■
Assuming, arguendo, that this Court has jurisdiction to review the injunction against police misconduct, the proper course would be to vacate and remand that portion-of the District Court’s judgment.
The injunction against police misconduct was entered by the District Court without benefit of independent analysis in its .findings, or opinion. The penultimate-paragraph in the opinion of the District Court is the sole discussion provided regarding the injunction that was'1 later entered:
“In addition,-plaintiffs are also entitled to a permanent injunction restraining the defendants not only ..from any future acts enforcing the statutes here declared void, but also restraining them from any future interference' with the civil rights of plaintiffs and the class they represent. Hairston v. Hutzler, 334 F. Supp. 251 (W. D. Pa. 1971).” 347 F. Supp., at 634.
*856•The District Court’s catch-all discussion of the facts appears to have been made solely with a view of overcoming the Younger barrier to adjudication of appellees’ claims and not to establish any legal rationale for the' injunction against police misconduct. The injunction’s crucial term “adequate cause” is defined, in part, by reference to the declarations of unconstitutionality of the five Texas statutes. Evidently, the District Court’s purpose in including this further injunctive relief against police misconduct in its judgment was to protect the integrity and aid in the enforcement of the primary declaratory and injunctive relief ordered by the Court. If the Court now remands to the District Court that part of the judgment which encompasses the- primary, relief, it would seem logical to also send back for-reconsideration the relief which the District' Court apparently premised on the existence of the primary relief. Since it is possible that following the remand the District Court will conclude that no relief directed against the operation or enforcement of the challenged statutes shouíd be entered, the District Court should have the opportunity to consider whether the injunction against police misconduct would any longer be appropriate!
(C)
Finally, I am satisfied the District Court abused its discretion when it granted this injunction against police misconduct. . . '
The injunction as entered would allow review by the federal court, by way of contempt proceedings, of claims which would; at the same time, be sub judice in ongoing ‘ state criminal proceedings. For example, assume a deputy sheriff made an arrest without a warrant and incident to that arrest seized evidence relevant to proof of a criminal offense; The arrestee can seek to suppress *857the evidence in his state criminal trial on the ground that "the arrest which preceded the seizure was not based upon probable cause. The injunction against police misconduct would permit .a trial of the same claim in federal court. Final-Judgment, par. 16 (C). Peres v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82 (1971), and Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U. S. 66 (1971), would require a Younger showing before any contempt citation could issue in such a situation. An injunction which contemplates this type of interference in state criminal proceedings is invalid on its face. “A federal court should not intervene to establish the basis for future intervention that would be so intrusive.and unworkable.” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S., at 500. Although O’Shea. dealt with the propriety of an injunction which would, purport to punish as contempt actions of judicial officers taken during the course of state criminal proceedings, the potential for disruption of state criminal proceedings, which was a principal concern in our analysis in. O’Shea, is just" as real a possibility in the case of the District' Court’s injunction against police misconduct. However accomplished
“such a major continuing intrusion of the equitable power of the federal courts into the daily conduct of state criminal proceedings is in sharp conflict with the principles of equitable restraint which .this Court has recognized . . . .” Id., at 502.
The injunction, in its paragraph 16 (B), appears to leave no room for' temporary restraint fo? investigation of suspicious activities premised on less than probable cause which this Court has held to be constitutional. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968).
The problems created by this injunction against police misconduct are manifold. - In the enforcement of the in*858junction, the District Court will likely- place itself on a collision course with our holdings in Younger and O’Shea. The fact that the law enforcement officers in Starr County and, indeed, in the whole State of Texas will be compelled to enforce the law only under threat, of criminal contempt proceedings in the United States District Court of the Southern District of Texas, illustrates the reckless course of action embarked upon by the District Court in issuing this injunction. Federal district courts were not meant to be super-police chiefs,- disciplining individual law enforcement officers for infractions of the rules for arrests and searches and seizures. A district court which improperly intrudes upon local police functions “can undermine the important values of police self-restraint and self-respect.” Long v. District of Columbia, 152 U. S. App. D. C. 187, 194, 469 F. 2d 927, 934 (1972) (Wright, J., concurring).
For all the problems that this injunction is likely to create, I find no reason to believe that it will provide meaningful relief for appellees. Comment, The Federal Injunction as a Kemedy for Unconstitutional Police Conduct, 78 Yale L. J. 143 (1968).20
*859The District Court, here, has entered an injunction which is ineffective in providing relief to appellees and likely to provoke extreme resentment among those the injunction restrains21 and genuine concern among all those who still adhere to the proposition.that state and federal relations should be governed by notions of comity.
In any event, I 'believe that the facts which were found by the District Court22 do not support the granting of a prohibitory or mandatory injunction against police conduct,
“[Recognition of the need for a proper balance in the concurrent operation of federal and state courts counsels restraint against the issuance of injunctions against state officers engaged in the administration of the State’s criminal laws in the absence of a showing of irreparable injury which ,is ‘ “both gre.at and' immediate.” ’ [Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 46 (1971).]” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S., at 499.
Injunctions against police misconduct should be issued, if at all, in only the most extreme cases, see, e. g., Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F. 2d 197 (CA4 1966), and then only to the extent that the relief granted would not “unnecessarily involve the courts in police matters and dictate action in situations in which discretion and flex*860ibility. are most important. In order for .a court to grant an injunction, there should be a- showing that there is a substantial risk that future violations will occur.” Long v. District of Columbia, supra, at 192, 469 F. 2d, at 932. The acts of police, misconduct were few and scattered. . There was no basis for the issuance of an injunction against police misconduct.

 Francisco Medrano, Kathy Baker, David Lopez, Gilbert Padilla, Magdaleno Dimas, and Benjamin Rodriguez.

 Jurisdiction is. alleged under 28 U. S. C. §§ 1343, 2201, 2202, 2281, and 2284, and 42 U. S. C. §§ 1983 and 1985.

 Tex. Penal Code, Arts. 439 (unlawful assembly), 474 (breach of the peace), and 482 (abusive language) (1952), and Tex. Rev. Civ. Stat., Arts.5154d (mass picketing) and 5154f (secondary picketing and boycotting) (1971).

 The Court states that “the District Court must -find that the class was properly represented.” Ante, at 819 n. 13. I take this to mean that the named plaintiff must be an appropriate representative for the class; the named plaintiff must have suffered the same injury as the class purportedly represented, and that injury must be sufficient to accord the named plaintiff standing to sue in his own right. Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U. S. 31, 32-33 (1962); Long v. District of Columpia, 152 U. S. App. D. C. 187, 190, 469 F. 2d 927, 930 (1972).

 See Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S. 727, 739 (1972); NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 428 (1963).

 The union may, of course, be directly-subject to criminal, prosecution-. A union prosecuted or threatened with prosecution qua union would be in the same position as an individual litigant with regard to standing and Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971). The special rules outlined in this opinion are -'designed for the more commpn situation wherfe the union is not injured (by being proceeded- against directly , in the operation of the criminal laws, but, rather, is injured derivatively from prosecutions and threats of prosecutions of its members.

 See n. 6, supra.

 There is no need now to attempt to further define those situations in which it would be proper to impute the state criminal prosecution of one who is not' a federal plaintiff to one who is. The association *of the state criminal defendant and the federal plaintiff necessáry for imputation will depend, uppn facts of joint • activity .and-common interest.

 The relief open to the District Court on remand is limited by the repeal of three of the statutes. Since the statutes no longer exist, they can have no conceivable further “chilling effect” on others in the exercise of their constitutionally protected rights. The justification has disappeared, then, for permitting a litigant to challenge a statute, not because of the unconstitutional application of the statute as to his conduct, but rather because the statute might as to other persons be applied in an unconstitutional manner. By repealing the statutes, the State has “remove[d] the seeming threat- or deterrence'to. constitutionally protected expression,” and the District Court should not apply the “strong medicine” of the ' overbreadth doctrine, which “has been employed by the Court sparingly and only as a last resort” to hold statutes unconstitutional on their face. Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413 U. S. 601, 613 (1973).

 But see n. 18, infra.

 Proof that, other union members have been subject to bad-faith arrests and prosecutions under a statute may be relevant to a claim that a union member faces injury from a substantial likelihood of being arrested’ and prosecuted in bad faith in the future under color of the' same statute. See supra, at 838.

 See ¶ 7.20 of the amended complaint, and 347 F. Supp. 605, 615 (SD Tex. 1972).

 See ¶ 7.13 of the amended complaint, and 347 F. Supp., at 614.

 See ¶ 7.11 of the amended complaint, and 347 F. Supp., at 613.

 I can find nothing improper ..with this warning. A second offense under the same statute is usually looked on more • seriously than a first.. -

 Captain Allee is, apparently, no longer in active service having retired from the Texas Rangers. According, to appellees he is no longer\a irfe’mber of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Defendants’ Supplemental District Court Brief 6 (filed Oct. 26, 1971). If appellees no longer have an active controversy with Captain Allee the^suit should be dismissed as moot as to him.

 The Court would rely on Milky Way v. Leary, 397 U. S. 98 (1970), for the contrary proposition: that this Court has jurisdiction to review by way of direct appeal ancillary matters decided by a three-judge district court in the exercise of its primary three-judge court review of the constitutional validity of state statutes. The precedential value of bur summary affirmance in this case is somewhat diminished by. the fact that the Brashear problem was not raised in any of appellees’ briefs. In fact, one of the appellees, contrary to Brashear, appears to concede that this Court possesses jurisdiction to review ancillary matters decided by a properly convened three-judge court. Motion to Dismiss, or Affirm of Appellee Frank S. Hogan 9 (No. 992, O. T. 1969). It should be noted, further,'that Perez v. Ledesma, which included a full analysis of ancillary jurisdiction on direct appeal from a three-judge court, was decided after Milky Way was summarily affirmed.
Although the District Court in Perez stated that it held the state statute to be facially constitutional, the decision of the District Court there that the arrests and seizures were unconstitutional appears in fact to 'have derived .from a broad condemnation of obscenity statutes, including the state statute dealt with in that case, without provisions incorporated therein protecting against criminal liability for acts occurring prior to an adversary judicial determination of obscenity. 304 F. Supp. 662, 667 (ED La. 1969). In effect, then, .the District Court in Perez acted broadly .to render a nullity the Louisiana statute, see id., at 673 (Rubin,. J., dissenting), and we, therefore, properly had jurisdiction over the appeal and we properly ruled on the question of whether the District Court could have inter.fered with state court- criminal proceedings by invalidating arrests and seizures made without any -prior adversary hearing.

 The Court in Jacobsen reasoned that
“[t]o hold to the contrary would be to permit one federal district judge to enjoin enforcement of a state statute on .the ground .of federal unconstitutionality whenever a non-constitutional ground of attack was also alleged, and this might, well defeat the purpose of § 2281.” 362 U. S., at 80.' (Emphasis in original.)
To hold that.a three-judge district court is not required to hear • matters unrelated to the determination of whether to enjoin the enforcement of state statutes, Would pose no similar risk.

 The author of the Comment wrote:
“For tolerated constitutional violations, a prohibitory injunction which only ordered high police officials to refrain from unconstitutional conduct would be useless — the problem lies not in what such officials are doing but in what they are not doing. Purely prohibitory injunctions would have to be directed against the subordinate policemen who'were acting illegally. But courts would be unable to enforce such injunctions unless they were willing to take over the task .of disciplining individual policemen. Such an approach would be highly inefficient since the court’s only means of enforcing its orders directly against policemen — a contempt proceeding — would be far too "cumbersome and heavy-handed to deal effectively with -large numbers of alleged violations.
“If the injunction is to have any utility as a remedy for tolerated police abuse, it must require affirmative action by the officials *859responsible. for police conduct.” 78 Yale L. J., at 147. (Emphasis in original; footnote omitted.)

 The injunction may ruta. against all the judicial, officers in Texas. A Justice of the Peace is a named' defendant. The injunction enjoins "Defendants, their successors, agents and employees, and persons acting in concert with them.” O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488 (1974), would seem plainly to forbid anticipatory, interference by an injunction in the official activities of state judicial officers.

 See Parts I and III, suprg.