Court Opinion

ID: 9458402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:51:19.861428+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:45.327440
License: Public Domain

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting opinion Sur Petition for Rehearing).
I dissent from the denial of the petition for rehearing.
In my view, this court should have remanded the proceedings with a direction to dismiss the complaint because the alleged constitutional deprivation — failure of the state to provide counsel for indigents at preliminary hearings — concerns the assertion by each plaintiff of a federal right which may be vindicated in a defense in a single state criminal proceeding. Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971); Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 (1971); Boyle v. Landry, 401 U.S. 77, 91 S.Ct. 758, 27 L.Ed.2d 696 (1971).
Younger, Samuels and Boyle, all decided subsequent to the district court order, provide that federal interference in state prosecutions is severely circumscribed; that “exceptional circumstances” permitting federal equity interference presume a showing of irreparable injury, Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 163, 63 S.Ct. 877, 87 L.Ed. 1324 (1943); that the injury must be “showing in the record,” and not merely alleged. Samuels, 401 U.S. at 68, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688, that to overcome the “longstanding public policy against federal court interference with state court proceedings,” Younger, 401 U.S. at 43, 91 S.Ct. at 750, “even irreparable injury is insufficient unless it is ‘both great and immediate’,” Ibid., 401 U.S. at 46, 91 S.Ct. at 751, and that “the cost, anxiety, *68and inconvenience of having to defend against a single criminal prosecution, could not by themselves be considered ‘irreparable’.” Ibid.
Thus, the district court was eminently correct in denying the requested injunction. That portion of its order should be affirmed. Because the declaratory judgment is now controlled by Samuels, holding that the practical effect of both injunctive and declaratory relief ordinarily is “virtually identical,” and the propriety of declaratory and injunctive relief should be judged “by essentially the same standards,” that portion of the district court’s order should be vacated and the complaint dismissed.
Underlying the panel’s decision is the faulty premise that a federal district court may somehow exercise supervisory or review functions over a state court system: “a decision by the County to move ahead with prosecutions in disregard of that declaratory judgment could not be ignored. Not to allow injunctive relief in this case would place the District Court in the position of having granted declaratory relief, and then being unable to remedy the County’s rejection of that judgment. This we cannot accept. Given the unique posture of this case, the District Court on remand should consider the appropriateness of injunctive relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2202.” (at 66, n. 14.)
The panel’s opinion closes with an instruction to the district court to “fashion whatever remedies it deems appropriate, consistent with our holding that Coleman must be followed and unjustifiable delay cannot be tolerated.” Indeed! Tolerated by whom? A federal district court has no supervisory or review power over any state court. The seminal case of Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 430, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963), merely gave federal district courts jurisdiction to inquire into “detention simpliciter.” When a non-custodial sentence is imposed by the state, a federal district court lacks even habeas corpus jurisdiction. United States ex rel. Dessus v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 452 F.2d 557, 559-560 (3d Cir. 1971). Similarily, a court of appeals has no power to review a state criminal proceeding. We may inquire only whether there has been an unconstitutional imposition of custody by the state.
Even more questionable is the notion that under the guise of § 1983, a federal district court may enjoin the state of Pennsylvania from prosecuting in Allegheny County, and the state courts from holding preliminary hearings, unless the panel’s concept of Coleman be respected. There is simply no authority and no precedent for this federal intrusion into state criminal processes.
Douglas v. City of Jeannette, supra, announced the general rule that a federal court should refuse to “interfere with or embarrass threatened proceedings in state courts save in those exceptional cases which call for the interposition of a court of equity to prevent irreparable injury which is clear and imminent.” 319 U.S. at 163, 63 S.Ct. at 881. Later, in Stefanelli v. Minard, 342 U.S. 117, 120, 72 S.Ct. 118, 96 L.Ed. 138 (1951), the Court observed that dictates of federalism demand that the federal judiciary respect state enforcement procedures except, as stated in Douglas, in “exceptional circumstances,” because this area represents “perhaps the most sensitive source of friction between States and Nation, namely, the active intrusion of the federal courts in the administration of the criminal law for the prosecution of crimes solely within the power of the States.” Severely limiting the concept o.f irreparable harm, the Younger Court reaffirmed this principle of comity as “a proper respect for state functions, a recognition of the fact that the National Government will fare best if the States and their institutions are left to perform their separate functions in their separate ways.” 401 U.S. at 44, 91 S.Ct. at 750.
Moreover, I am not convinced that this court lacks jurisdiction to right the wrong of an improperly issued declaratory judgment affecting the delicate area of federal state relations, simply because no appeal was taken. “No appeal was taken, however, and declaratory judg*69ment considerations are not before us. (at 66, n. 14). There are two answers to this. First, the panel stated in one paragraph that declaratory judgment considerations “are not before us,” and then proceeded in the very next paragraph to address itself to the “appropriateness of injunctive relief pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2202.”1 Thus, the very injunctive relief proposed by the panel inexorably brings into appellate purview the declaratory judgment, the substantive underpinning of the relief suggested by the panel.
Secondly, I would notice the faulty declaratory judgment on appeal because the absence of true adversity between the parties to these proceedings raises a serious question of justiciability, and therefore jurisdiction. “It is a well settled principle that the question of subject-matter jurisdiction is always open. It cannot be conferred or supplied by consent of both parties or by estoppel, laches, or waiver of either party. Eldridge v. Richfield Oil Corporation [247 F.Supp. 407 (S.D.Cal.1965), aff’d, 364 F.2d 909 (9th Cir. 1966)]; Page v. Wright, 116 F.2d 449 (7th Cir. 1940); Brown v. Fennell, 155 F.Supp. 424 (E.D. Pa. 1957).” Knee v. Chemical Leaman Tank Lines, Inc., 293 F.Supp. 1094, 1095 (E.D.Pa. 1968). Similarly, in Moore v. Sylvania Electric Products, Inc., 454 F.2d 81, 84 (3d Cir. 1972), we noted that “[i]t is proper for this court to inquire into the jurisdictional prerequisites sua sponte.”
The lack of the true adversary nature in the proceedings in the district court fairly leaps from the panel’s opinion. The agency charged with supplying public defenders eoncededly is Allegheny County, Pennsylvania yet it is not a party to the action. Nevertheless, the panel’s opinion states, “we expect Allegheny County fo fully comply with the District Court's declaratory judgment.” (at 66, n. 14.) The defendants are six magistrates of the City of Pittsburgh and the County District Attorney. None of the defendants has authority or jurisdiction to implement the district court’s declaratory judgment or the panel’s invitation to consider use of mandating an injunction to compel performance. Putting aside the recognized immunity of state judges under actions brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967); Bauers v. Heisel, 361 F.2d 581 (3d Cir. 1966), and recognizing that the very function of the district attorney’s office is prosecution, not defense, even if relief against the appropriate state government agency charged with the direction of the Public Defender program was not barred by Younger v. Harris, the lack of sufficient adversary parties made the entire proceedings defective under Article III standards. This defect goes to the heart of federal jurisdiction which may be raised by the court sua sponte2
*70These proceedings, like Swarb v. Lennox, supra, illustrate “the risk that comes from passing on abstract questions rather than limiting decisions to concrete cases in which a question is precisely framed by a clash of genuine adversary argument exploring every aspect of the issue.’’ Wright, Law of Federal Courts, § 12, p 37, citing United States v. Fruehauf, 365 U.S. 146, 81 S.Ct. 547, 5 L.Ed.2d 476 (1961); Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103, 89 S.Ct. 956, 22 L.Ed. 2d 113 (1969).
Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the denial of the petition for rehearing en banc.

. “Further necessary or proper relief based on a declaratory judgment or decree may be granted, after reasonable notice and hearing, against any adverse party whose rights have been determined by such judgment.”

. I would not put undue emphasis on Swarb v. Lennox, 405 U.S. 191, 92 S.Ct. 767, 31 L.Ed.2d 138 (1972), to avoid righting a district court order now deemed erroneous because of later decisions of the Supreme Court. Indeed, that case dramatically illustrates the practical necessity for true adversity in an Article III case and controversy. There “[t]he plaintiffs purport [ed] to act on behalf of a class consisting of all Pennsylvania residents who . . . signed documents containing cognovit provisions leading, or that could lead, to a confessed judgment in Philadelphia County. The defendants are the county’s Prothonotary and Sheriff, the officials responsible, respectively, for the recording of confessed judgments and for executing upon them.
A group of finance companies were permitted to intervene.” Swarb v. Lennox, 405 U.S. at 196-197, 92 S.Ct. at 770. Although the plaintiffs appealed from the restriction of their purported class, the defendants and intervening finance companies took no appeal. The interesting question presents itself: would a defendant having a direct financial interest in the outcome of the three-judge court’s decision have taken an appeal? In the companion ease, D. H. Overmyer Co. v. Frick Co., 405 U.S. 174, *7092 S.Ct. 775, 31 L.Ed.2d 124 (1972), involving true adverse parties to a cognovit note, the Court refused to accept the argument that a procedure under the cognovit clause was unconstitutional per so. In Swarb the Court observed: “Overmyer necessarily reveals some discomfiture on our part with respect to the present case. However that may be, the impact and effect of Overmyer upon the Pennsylvania system are not to be delineated in the one-sided appeal in this case and we make no attempt to do so.” Swarb v. Lennox, supra, 405 U.S. at 201-202, 92 S.Ct. at 773.
I am not aware that the justiciability issue was raised in Swarb, as I am here, but the case strikes me as a classic example of the danger which inheres when there is an absence of true adversity between the plaintiff and defendant. Swarb has created a jurisprudential vacuum in Pennsylvania. In Recommendation No. 37, the Procedural Rules Committee of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted that the Swarb Court said that the problems raised by the three-judge court decision are “peculiarly appropriate grist for the legislative mill.” The Committee also noted “the three-judge decree in Swarb remains in full force and effect, with its confusingly limited coverage and the troublesome problems it raises for the protlionotaries and sheriffs throughout the Commonwealth. . . . ” The Legal Intelligencer, May 24, 1972.