Court Opinion

ID: 9843147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:28:33.453402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:38.002907
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
This is in some respects a puzzling case, but I believe we must start with first principles. It is a grave matter to shut the federal courthouse doors in the face of litigants who present claims over which there is federal jurisdiction. Abstention is “an extraordinary and narrow exception” permissible only in “rare” cases and then only on grounds clearly recognized as adequate by the Supreme Court. Allegheny County v. Mashuda, 360 U.S. 185, 188, 79 S.Ct. 1060, 1062-63, 3 L.Ed.2d 1163 (1959); see also Trust & Investment Advisors, Inc. v. Hogsett, 43 F.3d 290, 294 (7th Cir.1994).
In the matter before us I think that the district court made bad law out of what may be a hard case. The majority, in an effort to devise a policy for what is at least an unusual case, makes equally bad law. It would require a stretch far beyond any recognized principles to see this as a case for Burford abstention and the majority correctly addresses this issue. But, in so doing, it provides an expansive interpretation of Younger which would authorize closing the courthouse doors almost at will.
There are several reasons why Younger has no application here. First, this is not a case of a federal court attempting to enjoin a state proceeding. See Trust & Investment Advisors, Inc., 43 F.3d at 295 (Younger abstention involves enjoining “judicial or judicial in nature” state proceedings). Here there are at worst potentially parallel proceedings and there is no showing that the federal proceedings will, “damage [j the state interest” as the majority suggests.
Second, there are no ongoing or pending state proceedings to be interfered with here. Under Illinois law, the Department of Mental Health (Department) is required to file a treatment plan for each NGRI inmate with the state court every 60 days. That plan, if the Department so chooses, can recommend that an inmate be given on- or off-grounds passes. If the court approves the treatment plan, then the Department may allow the inmates to use their passes. Both plaintiffs in this case had passes originally, but after *504two inmates escaped from Elgin, those passes were summarily taken away by the Department without any individual review administratively or by the state courts. Passes were also taken away from the other NGRI’s. After a security fence was built, some NGRI’s were again given passes, but the passes now only allowed movement in the very small area within the fence, and only for a short time.
The majority implies that the plaintiffs have litigated this issue and others relating to their confinement in state court, with plaintiff Manos being so active that he eventually obtained his release. But the Magistrate Judge’s findings of fact say that it was the Department which submitted a plan that “restored” the new passes to the plaintiffs and which suggested the release of plaintiff Manos. In other words, the plaintiffs were not actively litigating this issue; rather the status quo of the Department’s suggesting treatment plans and the court’s approving them simply continued. The Department decided what to suggest as treatment, and it was the Department which decided to remove passes without individual review, the Department which decided that when it reintroduced passes they would be much more restrictive and the Department which decided not to suggest any more less-restrictive passes. The plaintiffs are challenging the Department’s decision to do away with their court-approved (and less-restrictive) passes, not a decision by the state courts. Their reason for going to federal court may simply reflect a concern that the state courts may too routinely approve the recommendations of Department employees.
It is true that the state courts retain jurisdiction of the inmates at Elgin and must reapprove treatment plans every 60 days. The Department retains some discretion in implementing the plans. It is also true that the Department may not be able to exercise its discretion should the court order it to provide all the privileges approved in the plan. But the fact that there may be a state remedy in existence but not invoked is certainly not grounds for Younger or any other species of abstention. Not infrequently, federal and state courts may have jurisdiction to address similar problems but, unless federal measures disrupt on-going state proceedings, there are generally no grounds for abstention.
Abstention is for the rare case, and this case surely fits into the federal § 1983 jurisprudence. We have also decided - similar eases brought by Elgin inmates in this court in the past, and saw no reason to abstain then. For example, in Johnson v. Brelje, 701 F.2d 1201 (7th Cir.1983), individuals found “unfit to stand trial” (USTs) brought a § 1983 claim against the Department of Mental Health for its practice of assigning all USTs to a more secure facility, for its failure to allow access to telephones and for unduly restricting the movements of inmates around the facility. In Maust v. Headley, 959 F.2d 644 (7th Cir.1992), an Elgin inmate who had been transferred to the more secure Chester Mental Health Center brought a § 1983 claim against the Department of Mental Health, saying that the transfer and visitation restrictions imposed by the Department violated his right to due process. In both of these cases, the plaintiffs’ confinement was governed by a statute which required approval of UST treatment plans by the state court, just like the statute at issue here governing NGRIs. Thus the plaintiffs in Johnson and Maust presumably had the same “ongoing relationship” with the state courts that plaintiffs here do. Yet in both these cases we reached the merits with no talk of abstention or Younger.
I do not therefore agree that Younger abstention applies, and I respectfully dissent.
Before CUDAHY, ESCHBACH, and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.