Court Opinion

ID: 9463829
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:17:22.094811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:18.288341
License: Public Domain

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge, with whom Judges MARIS and VAN DUSEN,
join, dissenting in part.
When the Supreme Court took the Younger v. Harris direction this is the case that should have been anticipated. I think it was. I doubt that the Court’s current majority really intends to put the free exercise of religion claim here presented beyond the reach of federal remedial law.
I
Chesimard asserts that under the tenets of the Sunni Muslim sect of which she is a member Friday, or Jumah, is the recognized Sabbath day, and that she is a devout observer. Throughout pretrial stages in a pending criminal proceeding her first amendment claim was recognized by the State of New Jersey, when the court con*75sistently scheduled pretrial motions on a day other than Friday, its regular motion day. When the trial commenced, however, the court ruled that it would sit on Fridays, even though Chesimard and her counsel were willing to have court hours extended on other days, or to participate in the trial on Saturdays, and even though no one made any claim that either course would interfere with first amendment rights of other trial participants. Finding that Chesimard had a “devout interest in observing the Islamic Sabbath,” the State Court ruled that while the trial would proceed on Fridays she need not appear and participate on those days. Thus she was given the choice of participating on Fridays in violation of her first amendment free exercise rights or of staying away and surrendering rights of confrontation, assistance of counsel, notice, and opportunity to be heard guaranteed by the sixth and fourteenth amendments.
II
We note at the outset that the free exercise claim is entirely collateral to any issues bearing upon Chesimard’s guilt or innocence of the pending criminal charge. Neither the sufficiency of the charge, nor the admissibility of any evidence in support of it, nor the due process by which it is to be tried, is in any way involved. The claim is solely that a trial on a given day of the week violates her free exercise rights. That claim is as completely collateral to the merits of the criminal proceeding as if it were asserted on behalf of a Roman Catholic juror objecting to participating in a trial on Sunday. The majority holds that Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971) and Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975) prevent “federal intervention.” Presumably they would rule similarly in the juror’s case.
This court, since Cooper v. Hutchinson, 184 F.2d 119 (3d Cir. 1950) has been committed to the view that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is an express exception to 28 U.S.C. § 2283, an issue left unresolved in Younger v. Harris.1 In Lewis v. Kugler, 446 F.2d 1343 (3d Cir. 1971) we were the first Court of Appeals confronted with the effect of the Younger sextet2 on prior case law under § 1983. We held that Younger left unaffected the holdings in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961) and Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967) that the existence of a state remedy did not preclude resort to a federal forum. We held that Younger applied only to the extent that a federal injunctive or declaratory judgment would interfere with the state court’s adjudication of the merits in a pending criminal prosecution. We reiterated this interpretation of Younger in Conover v. Montemuro, 477 F.2d 1073 (3d Cir. 1973). Conover was a civil rights class action seeking relief against the Pennsylvania juvenile intake procedures. We reversed the dismissal of the complaint on Younger grounds, reasoning:
Finally there is the narrow issue whether, even as to class members actually before the Family Court Division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, the ruling in Samuels v. Mackell, supra, would preclude declaratory relief of some kind. Lewis v. Kugler, supra at 1349, is relevant here. That case suggests that if an actual proceeding is pending, as to those class members against whom those proceedings are pending certain types of declaratory relief will be inappropriate. It holds that the federal court should not foreclose the merits of the issue of legality of a search or seizure by granting a declaratory judgment. Such a determination would in effect substitute federal *76court fact finding for that already available in the state court on an issue going to the ability of the state to prove its charge. See e. g., Stefanelli v. Minara, 342 U.S. 117, 72 S.Ct. 118, 96 L.Ed. 138 (1951). This case does not present the same kind of issue. Declaratory relief with respect to the intake procedures will not necessarily hinder the eventual adjudicatory process of the Court of Common Pleas or substitute federal fact finding in any case in which a petition for adjudication of delinquency may be tried. Thus Lewis v. Kugler, supra, is not authority for the withholding of declaratory relief, even as to those class members presently before the Pennsylvania courts. In that case we pointed out that in the exercise of its broad equitable powers, a district court could fashion a remedy which would prevent deprivation of constitutional rights while at the same time avoiding unnecessary encroachment on state and local government functions, 446 F.2d at 1351-1352. Since a remedy with respect to the intake procedures would not necessarily interfere with the adjudication functions of the Commonwealth’s juvenile court, it is therefore not necessarily precluded by Younger v. Harris, supra, or Samuels v. Mackell, supra. 477 F.2d at 1082.
Thus, by 1973 we were firmly and unanimously committed to the proposition that Younger applied only when the federal proceeding would effectively preempt the state court’s adjudication of the merits of a pending criminal charge. Not all circuits adopted our interpretation of Younger, which limited its application to issues directly involved in the adjudication of guilt.3 One Circuit which did so was the Fifth. It embraced the Third Circuit interpretation of Younger as early as Morgan v. Wofford, 472 F.2d 822, 826 (5th Cir. 1973). Eleven months later in Pugh v. Rainwater, 483 F.2d 778 (5th Cir. 1973), aff’d in part and rev’d in part sub nom., Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) the Fifth Circuit held Younger in applicable to an application for federal in-junctive relief. There, petitioner complained of the state’s practice of making the prosecuting attorney the judge of probable cause to hold arrestees until arraignment or trial. The Fifth Circuit also expressly rejected the contention that the availability of a state court pretrial declaratory or in-junctive remedy precluded resort to a federal forum, writing:
While the plaintiffs might have filed suit in state court for a declaratory judgment and other equitable relief based upon the same grounds as this suit, this procedure would have required a second state court proceeding to adjudicate a federal claim not based upon the merits of the defenses to the state criminal actions. Younger has never been applied by our circuit to force a federal court to relinquish jurisdiction over a federal claim which could not be adjudicated in a single pending or future state proceeding, and we decline to so apply it now. 483 F.2d at 782.
When Pugh v. Rainwater, supra came before the Supreme Court, it affirmed the Younger holding. This despite the fact that a phalanx of state Attorneys General, including the Attorney General of New Jersey, filed briefs amici curiae urging reversal. 420 U.S. at 104-5, 95 S.Ct. 854. The Younger discussion in Gerstein v. Pugh appears, as the majority opinion notes,4 in a brief footnote at 420 U.S. at 108 n. 9, 95 S.Ct. at 860. It is nonetheless the unanimous holding of the Court, for all justices concurred in Part I of the opinion. The most significant feature of the brief discussion is the sentence:
The order to hold preliminary hearings could not prejudice the conduct of the trial on the merits. See Conover v. Mon-*77temuro, 477 F.2d 1073, 1082 (CA 3 1972); cf. Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U.S. 82 [91 S.Ct. 674, 27 L.Ed.2d 701] (1971); Stefa-nelli v. Minard, 342 U.S. 117 [72 S.Ct. 118, 96 L.Ed. 138] (1951). (Emphasis supplied).
The quoted sentence makes the precise distinction which we made in Conover v. Mon-temuro, supra, between adjudication of the merits of the criminal charge and adjudication of issues collateral to the merits, and it cites as authority for that distinction the very page in Conover v. Montemuro, quoted above, where we made that distinction. This court is bound by that approval of the distinction between issues going to the merits and issues collateral thereto.
The majority tacitly acknowledges as much. It concedes that “[p]ersuasive arguments can be made on either side of the question whether an order that requires that a pending state trial not be conducted on Fridays creates a sufficient degree of interference with the ‘conduct of the trial on the merits’ to require application of Younger principles,”5 but makes no attempt to marshall such arguments in support of its result. There really are none since the free exercise claim is irrelevant to the merits, and an adjudication of guilt will be no different on Saturday than on Friday. It seems clear enough to me that what the Gerstein v. Pugh Court had in mind was federal adjudication of issues which could be adjudicated on the merits in the state trial.
Recognizing that there is really no distinction between this case and Gerstein v. Pugh the majority proceeds to rely on Ku-gler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 95 S.Ct. 1524, 44 L.Ed.2d 15 (1975) for the proposition that even if the free exercise claim is collateral to guilt determination, a federal court must nevertheless withhold relief. There is a significant problem, however, with reliance on Kugler v. Helfant. The issue in Kugler v. Helfant, involving the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination, was in no sense collateral to the merits of the criminal charge. There is no inconsistency between the rule laid down in Conover v. Montemuro and approved in Gerstein v. Pugh, and the holding in Kugler v. Helfant. Indeed, both this court, 500 F.2d at 1193, and the Supreme Court, 421 U.S. at 122, 95 S.Ct. 1524, made it clear that the latter case involved the “exceptional circumstances” limitation upon the Younger remedial powers rule, rather than the collateral issues rule, as to which Younger is simply inapplicable. The Supreme Court in Kugler v. Helfant differed with us as to whether the disclosed circumstances were sufficiently exceptional to warrant our adjudication of a factual dispute over suppression of a confession which could have been litigated in the criminal trial. If erroneously determined, that issue would have afforded a ground for a new trial on certiorari or habeas corpus. Kugler v. Helfant simply does not deal with issues such’ as the free exercise claim here, or the pretrial detention claim in Gerstein v. Pugh, which do not bear on the merits of the criminal charge, the admissibility of evidence to support it, or the fairness of the processes used in resolving it.
The majority’s reliance on Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 609, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1972) is equally misplaced for the same reasons. Huffman did not enlarge the categories of issues to which the Younger rule applies. It did no more than put state quasi-criminal sanctioning proceedings on a par with state criminal sanctioning proceedings. It contains no language suggesting that the claimant of a federally protected right must resort to and exhaust state remedies collateral to the merits of a quasi-criminal enforcement proceeding before resorting to a federal forum. Nothing in the majority opinion in Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd. suggests that it was intended to cast doubt upon the holding in Gerstein v. Pugh that the Younger rule is inapplicable to collateral issues. Indeed, part VI of the opinion, 420 U.S. at 611, 95 S.Ct. 1200, remanding for further proceedings to determine if a Younger exception applies, is an express *78holding that no enlargement of the reach of the Younger rule was intended. The rule was never intended to apply to issues which do not bear on guilt or liability.
Putting the issue squarely, let us suppose that, yielding to the practicalities of the state court’s ruling, Chesimard attends trial each Friday. In that event, each Friday she will have been subjected to what the majority acknowledges is a significant first amendment deprivation. But assuming an otherwise error-free trial, what appellate or habeas corpus relief would be appropriate? The majority opinion is carefully circumspect on this point. Nowhere does it suggest that either the Supreme Court or a habeas corpus court would, or even could, set aside the judgment of conviction and order a new trial. It goes no further than to refer to the state’s contention as to the availability of appellate review of a final order, and it relies only on the availability of state interlocutory relief.6 The majority’s circumspection is entirely appropriate, for no authority with which I am familiar would permit reversal of an otherwise er-rorless conviction for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the guilt determination. If the free exercise right in question is lost pendente lite it is lost for all time.7 Even a posttrial damage remedy is foreclosed by the doctrine of judicial immunity. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967).
III
Of course, if Chesimard, under compulsion of the Hobson’s choice afforded by the state court ruling, were to elect to forego her right of confrontation and her right to the effective assistance of counsel, and the trial were to proceed each Friday in her absence, a judgment of sentence would present different issues upon review. Significantly, the majority opinion does not rely upon the availability of this chimerical choice. Rather, it focuses on the availability of pendente lite relief in a state forum to relieve Chesimard of the necessity of making it.8 Undoubtedly the reluctance to rely on the choice of surrendering sixth amendment rights to preserve first amendment rights reflects the majority’s belief, which I share, that the very fact of being forced to make such a choice is a form of irreparable injury for which interlocutory relief should, as a matter of federal constitutional law, be afforded. Cf. United States v. Garcia, 544 F.2d 681, 685 (3d Cir. 1976) (Aldisert, J.) (forcing a Hobson’s choice and exacting a price for the exercise of a constitutional right is impermissible). Moreover, the majority, I suspect, foresees the distinct possibility that in reviewing a final judgment in the event Chesimard elects to remain in her cell, the New Jersey appellate courts would find that she voluntarily waived her rights of confrontation and effective assistance of counsel. And if the New Jersey appellate courts should so hold, the prosecutor would most assuredly claim on certiorari that such a holding was an adequate and independent state ground, precluding both certiorari and habeas corpus relief.
Prior to May 3, 1976 I would have thought that Chesimard could safely have preserved her first amendment rights by remaining in her cell, while at the same time preserving her opportunity to obtain federal review, by certiorari or habeas corpus, of the sixth and fourteenth amendment violations resulting from the trial go*79ing forward in her absence. Since the decisions in Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 96 S.Ct. 1691, 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976) and Francis v. Henderson, 425 U.S. 536, 96 S.Ct. 1708, 48 L.Ed.2d 149 (1976) I am far less certain. Certainly in light of those eases, which substantially cut back on the federal waiver standard of Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 1019, 82 L.Ed. 1461 (1938); Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 83 S.Ct. 822, 9 L.Ed.2d 837 (1963) and Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443, 85 S.Ct. 564, 13 L.Ed.2d 408 (1965), no counsel could conscientiously advise Chesimard that she could safely stay away from court on Fridays and later assert that she had been deprived by the state of her confrontation and counsel rights. While I would not find waiver I can hardly predict that, in the present judicial climate, another judge might not. The choice which the state court afforded is no choice at all, but only the offer of a gamble on the ultimate availability of federal review, against the certainty of loss of first amendment rights.
Obviously, the majority puts no stock in the availability of the choice of staying in a cell on Fridays. It relies instead, and solely relies, on the availability of collateral pen-dente lite relief in a state court.
Such a court might be the United States Supreme Court, which could on certiorari from a final order refusing to consider and decide the claim pendente lite order the state court to afford a remedy.10 There is ample authority that state courts of general jurisdiction must, as a matter of federal law, entertain actions for the vindication of federally protected rights. See, e.g., General Oil v. Crain, 209 U.S. 211, 28 S.Ct. 475, 52 L.Ed. 754 (1908); Iowa-Des Moines National Bank v. Bennett, 284 U.S. 239, 52 S.Ct. 133, 76 L.Ed. 265 (1931); Testa v. Katt, 330 U.S. 386, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967 (1947). Such a federal court could also be a United States district court, which, if the state courts did not entertain and decide the claim, would not be prevented from entertaining, a new § 1983 application on the merits. Certainly the state could not claim res judicata. The majority opinion does hot suggest which federal court would rule on the question, but beneath the velvet glove of deference to the state court system for pendente lite relief there is plainly assumed to be the iron hand of federal law. For certainly the majority would not refer Che-simard to a state remedy which it believes the state has no binding obligation to afford.
IV
While the court purports not to decide whether federal intervention would be justified in the absence of state procedures for interlocutory review, or upon affirmance of the challenged ruling by the state Supreme Court,9 it is clear that the linchpin of the majority ruling is the presumed availability of a state forum which will entertain the free exercise claim pendente lite. Moreover, the majority must mean that as a matter of federal law a state court is, in the circumstances of this case, obliged to provide a forum which will entertain the free exercise claim pendente lite. Presumably, the majority intends that if the claim is meritorious, the state court must vindicate the right, and that if it does not do so some federal court will.
This underlying assumption, which quite clearly is the unarticulated major premise of the majority opinion, sets in sharp relief the question what policies were intended to be advanced by the Younger sextet. Was the Court aiming at imposing upon lower federal court judges an appropriate deference toward their opposite numbers on the state bench? Or was the Court thinking about the appropriate interrelationship between state law and federal law, state sovereignty and federal sovereignty? The majority must opt for the first rather than the second interpretation. It withholds relief to afford the Supreme Court of New Jersey an opportunity to consider a nunc pro tunc application for interlocutory relief, while at the same time implying that the New Jer*80sey courts are obliged by federal law to entertain the claim pendente lite. Its interpretation becomes even clearer when it urges that “intervention here would deprive the New Jersey Supreme Court of an opportunity to review a discrete judicial ruling in a pending trial.”11 Apparently the New Jersey Supreme Court, and perhaps the trial judge, will feel better if the former makes the ruling on a federal law issue.
I think this interpretation of Younger trivializes what was intended to be a significant milestone, not in the relationships between federal judges and state judges, a patent irrelevancy, but in the relationship between the national law and state enforcement of its own law. It is true, of course, that the debate over fourteenth amendment “intrusion” in the state criminal justice system has often been carried on the “we-they”, ad hominem level. See, e.g., State v. Funicello, 60 N.J. 60, 69, 286 A.2d 55, 59 (N.J.1972) (Weintraub, J., concurring), cert, denied sub nom. New Jersey v. Presha et al., 408 U.S. 942, 92 S.Ct. 2849, 33 L.Ed.2d 766 (1972).
I do not accept the proposition that Justice Black had in mind anything so small when he spoke of “Our Federalism.” It seems to me that what was intended was a limitation on federal sovereignty in all its aspects, by the imposition of an obligation to give due regard to state procedural law in the state’s enforcement of the criminal and quasi-criminal law. Such regard is due, under Younger, even when the merits of the charge also involve adjudication of federal law issues. If I am right that more was intended than a tender regard for the feelings of state court judges, then it is obvious that the Younger policy is invaded to precisely the same extent when federal law requires a state tribunal to give pen-dente lite relief as when federal law permits a federal tribunal to give such relief.
If, as the majority apparently assumes, the state courts must as a matter of federal law entertain an application for pendente lite relief from the requirement that the Chesimard trial be held on Fridays, and must grant relief if the first amendment claim is meritorious, then the degree of interference with the pending state prosecution will be identical. I fail to see how there is any distinction from the point of view of legitimate concerns of federalism, between an order interfering with trial on Fridays emanating from a lower federal court, from the Supreme Court, or from a state court, where the order is required by federal law. Either all three are precluded by Younger principles or none are.
I make this point not because I have any doubts that federal law requires that a state tribunal entertain Chesimard’s first amendment claim pendente lite, for I have none. Rather, it seems to me that in relying upon the availability of interim relief in the state courts the majority has eliminated any policy support for its result which might have been derived from the Younger sextet. The very reason on which the majority relies for withholding federal relief cuts against any claim that the interests of federalism require that result.
V
The reason for the Younger sextet rule commanding that federal courts refrain from a premature adjudication of issues going to the merits of a state charge is the assumption that a post-judgment remedy by certiorari or habeas corpus affords adequate relief. The Court held that merely being subjected to trial did not amount to such irreparable injury as would make post-judgment relief inadequate. See, e.g., Younger v. Harris, supra, 401 U.S. at 45, 46, 91 S.Ct. 746.
That reasoning is entirely inapposite in this case, for as we point out above, the free exercise claim will never be the subject of post-judgment relief. The invasion will take place every Friday and will be completely irreparable unless pendente lite relief is afforded. Even if the Younger sextet is not, as I conclude, irrelevant to such a collateral claim, the fact of such irreparable injury would be an “exceptional eircum-*81stance” warranting relief even under those holdings. By tacitly holding, however, that the Younger rule is not a limitation upon federal law, but only upon lower federal courts, the majority has imposed upon the state courts the obligation of litigating claims for pendente lite relief on issues collateral to the state’s criminal or civil charge. Let us assume that the New Jersey Supreme Court, recognizing this fact, will entertain the free exercise claim pen-dente lite. Two outcomes are possible. It will affirm the Friday trial order or it will reverse. If it reverses, the matter will be at an end. But if it affirms? At that point, the claim having been litigated, Che-simard will be unable to resort to any federal forum other than the Supreme Court. Since the subject matter — free exercise of religion during the trial — will end with the trial, a petition for certiorari would be meaningless unless accompanied by a motion for pendente lite relief pending its disposition. This, to me, illustrates still another defect in the majority’s reasoning. Of all the courts in the country, the Supreme Court is the least capable, by reason of its limited appellate jurisdiction,12 remoteness, the press of its business, and the institutional framework of its operations, of affording meaningful consideration of the need for pendente lite relief on an issue such as this. Yet the majority decision necessarily precludes review of an adverse ruling by the highest state court in an accessible federal forum, and necessarily thrusts upon the Supreme Court a responsibility it is ill equipped to discharge. I am completely at a loss to understand this sort of federalism, unless, perhaps, it is based upon the assumption that only Supreme Court Justices can be trusted to act with appropriate deference in dealing with state court judges on first amendment issues. As I said in Part IV above, such an assumption trivializes the Younger rule.
VI
The majority does not decide the merits of the first amendment claim. I have no doubt that the state court order is invalid, given that court’s finding that Chesimard’s Sabbatarian beliefs are sincerely held.
The right of individuals to be free from governmental restraint upon their free exercise of religion is the first stated and among the most carefully guarded of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 407, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501, 509, 66 S.Ct. 276, 90 L.Ed. 265 (1946); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530, 65 S.Ct. 315, 89 L.Ed. 430 (1945). The significance of the right is not diminished by an individual’s status as a defendant in a criminal prosecution. See Cruz v. Beto, 405 U.S. 319, 92 S.Ct. 1079, 31 L.Ed.2d 263 (1972). Where a person’s right to the free exercise of religion is inhibited by state action, the courts will scrutinize the state’s chosen means of attaining its goals to determine whether the state has met its obligation to avoid, to the extent possible, infringement of the protected freedom. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 304, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940); see Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396,413, 94 S.Ct. 1800, 40 L.Ed.2d 224 (1974); United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 264-68, 88 S.Ct. 419, 19 L.Ed.2d 508 (1967). The governmental goal or purpose itself will be value-weighed against the protected right of the individual to determine which should prevail, and a purpose of obtaining a government objective even of the highest order, will not justify the imposition of restraint upon the free exercise of religion unless the objective cannot otherwise be achieved.13 Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. *82205, 215, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972);14 Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 407 (1963); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 607, 81 S.Ct. 1144, 6 L.Ed.2d 563 (1961).
The state’s concern for the efficient and speedy administration of justice in an environment conducive to due process is undoubtedly a significant state interest. Cox v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 559, 85 S.Ct. 476, 13 L.Ed.2d 487 (1965). In Cox the state’s interest in the integrity of the criminal process was a compelling and overriding one because the orderly administration of justice was threatened by the individuals' exercise of the right of free speech; however, in the present case, the efficient and orderly administration of justice is not placed in jeopardy by the removal of one of the five trial days ordinarily available to the court and the petitioner’s observance of her religious faith in itself poses no threat to the administration of justice.
In balancing the state interest in prompt criminal trials against the petitioner’s right to observe her religious beliefs, given the facts of this case with the alternatives available to achieve the state’s purpose and the limited nature of the disruption of" orderly trial proceedings caused by not conducting the trial on Fridays, the petitioner’s request should have been honored.
It is apparent from the majority’s studied delicacy in discussing the free exercise claim that it does not disagree with the foregoing first amendment principles or leven with the conclusion that the free exer-fcise claim should have been honored. It denies relief solely on the ground that the Younger rule precludes it. Since I think the majority has misconstrued the Younger cases and disregarded the controlling precedent, Gerstein v. Pugh, supra, I would remand to the district court for the entry of a declaratory judgment that the state should have honored Chesimard’s free exercise claim by refraining from conducting her trial on Fridays. I have no doubt that such a judgment would be honored by the state courts, and thus that injunctive relief would not be necessary.
VII
I agree with the dispositions of Chesi-mard’s remaining claims in the manner set out in footnote 1 of the majority opinion, and to that extent join in the court’s judgment.

. Ultimately the Supreme Court adopted the Third Circuit view on § 2283 in Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 92 S.Ct. 2151, 32 L.Ed.2d 705 (1972).

. Younger v. Harris, supra; 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); Perez v. Le-desma, 401 U.S. 82, 91 S.Ct. 674, 27 L.Ed.2d 701 (1971); Dyson v. Stein, 401 U.S. 200, 91 S.Ct. 769, 27 L.Ed.2d 781 (1971); Byrne v. Kar-alexis, 401 U.S. 216, 91 S.Ct. 777, 27 L.Ed.2d 792 (1971).

. The conflicting views of other circuits are contrasted with those of the Third and Fifth Circuits in Note, Federal Equitable Relief in Matters Collateral to State Criminal Proceedings, 44 Fordham L.Rev. 597 (1975).

. Majority Opinion at 67.

. Majority Opinion at 68.

. Majority Opinion at 65-67. See Part IV infra. At oral argument before this court, counsel for Chesimard expressed willingness to seek interlocutory pendente lite relief before the New Jersey Supreme Court, provided that the prosecution would agree not to try the case on Fridays pending decision on that petition. The State, however, rejected any such agreement.

. The majority opinion recognizes the distinction between issues which would be grounds for appellate reversal of the judgment and issues which would not be, when in the last paragraph of footnote 1 it holds that Younger principles do not apply to a challenge to conditions of confinement. Inexplicably, it fails to acknowledge that for purposes of review of a judgment of conviction, that ¡challenge and the free exercise challenge are identical.

. Majority Opinion at 67.

. Majority Opinion at 67.

. But see n.12 infra.

. Majority Opinion at 68.

. There is no provision for review by the Supreme Court of interlocutory orders of state courts. I would hope that the Court would treat the denial of pendente lite relief on a claim such as here presented as collaterally final within the meaning of the Forgay-Cohn doctrine. See Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cahn, 420 U.S. 469, 481-82 & n.10, 95 S.Ct. 1029, 43 L.Ed.2d 328 (1975). But see id. at 501-512, 95 S.Ct. 1029 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).

. We note that in United States v. Robel, 389 U.S. 258, 268 n.20, 88 S.Ct. 419, 19 L.Ed.2d 508 (1967), the Supreme Court declined to employ the balancing of the interests test and rested its decision on the existence of alternative meth*82ods, having a less drastic impact on first amendment freedoms, by which the Government could have achieved its purpose without use of the methods chosen.

. In Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, the Court said at pages 214 and 215, 92 S.Ct. at page 1532: “[A] State’s interest . . ., however highly we rank it, is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on fundamental rights and interest, such as those specifically protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
The essence of all that has been said and written on the subject is that only those interests of the highest order and those not otherwise served can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion.”