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[ Footnote * ] Together with No. 9, Fernandez v. Mackell, District Attorney of Queens County, et al., also on appeal from the same court.
Appellants, who had been indicted under New York's criminal anarchy law, sought declaratory as well as injunctive relief against their prosecutions, on the ground that the law is unconstitutional. A three-judge District Court upheld the law and dismissed the complaints. Held:
BLACK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C. J., and HARLAN, STEWART, and BLACKMUN, JJ., joined. DOUGLAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, post, p. 74. STEWART, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which HARLAN, J., joined, ante, p. 54. BRENNAN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the result, in which WHITE and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 75.
Victor Rabinowitz argued the cause for appellants in No. 7 on the original argument and on the rearguments. With him on the briefs were Leonard B. Boudin, Michael Standard, and Dorian Bowman. Eleanor Jackson Piel [401 U.S. 66, 67] argued the cause and filed briefs for appellant in No. 9 on the original argument and on the rearguments.
Frederick J. Ludwig argued the cause for appellee Mackell in both cases on the original argument and on the rearguments. With him on the briefs was Thomas J. Mackell, pro se. Maria L. Marcus, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for appellee Attorney General of New York in both cases on the original argument and on the rearguments. With her on the briefs were Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney General, pro se, Samuel A. Hirshowitz, First Assistant Attorney General, and Hillel Hoffman, Assistant Attorney General.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The appellants in these two cases were all indicted in a New York state court on charges of criminal anarchy, in violation of 160, 161, 163, and 580 (1) of the New York Penal Law. 1 They later filed these actions in federal district court, 2 alleging (1) that the anarchy statute was void for vagueness in violation of due process, and an abridgment of free speech, press, and assembly, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) that the anarchy statute had been pre-empted by federal law; and (3) that the New York laws under which the grand jury had been drawn violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment because they disqualified from jury service any member of the community who did not own real or personal property of the value of at least $250, and because [401 U.S. 66, 68] the laws furnished no definite standards for determining how jurors were to be selected. Appellants charged that trial of these indictments in state courts would harass them, and cause them to suffer irreparable damages, and they therefore prayed that the state courts should be enjoined from further proceedings. In the alternative, appellants asked the District Court to enter a declaratory judgment to the effect that the challenged state laws were unconstitutional and void on the same grounds. The three-judge court, convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2284, held that the New York criminal anarchy law was constitutional as it had been construed by the New York courts and held that the complaints should therefore be dismissed. 288 F. Supp. 348 (SDNY 1968). 3
In No. 2, Younger v. Harris, ante, p. 37, we today decided on facts very similar to the facts in these cases that a United States District Court could not issue an injunction to stay proceedings pending in a state criminal court at the time the federal suit was begun. This was because it did not appear from the record that the plaintiffs would suffer immediate irreparable injury in accord with the rule set out in Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157 (1943), and many other cases. Since in the present case there is likewise no sufficient showing in the record that the plaintiffs have suffered or would suffer irreparable injury, our decision in the Younger case is dispositive of the prayers for injunctions [401 U.S. 66, 69] here. The plaintiffs in the present cases also included in their complaints an alternative prayer for a declaratory judgment, but for the reasons indicated below, we hold that this alternative prayer does not require a different result, and that under the circumstances of these cases, the plaintiffs were not entitled to federal relief, declaratory or injunctive. Accordingly we affirm the judgment of the District Court, although not for the reasons given in that court's opinion.
In our opinion in the Younger case, we set out in detail the historical and practical basis for the settled doctrine of equity that a federal court should not enjoin a state criminal prosecution begun prior to the institution of the federal suit except in very unusual situations, where necessary to prevent immediate irreparable injury. The question presented here is whether under ordinary circumstances the same considerations that require the withholding of injunctive relief will make declaratory relief equally inappropriate. The question is not, however, a novel one. It was presented and fully considered by this Court in Great Lakes Co. v. Huffman, 319 U.S. 293 (1943). We find the reasoning of this Court in the Great Lakes case fully persuasive and think that its holding is controlling here.
In the Great Lakes case several employers had brought suit against a Louisiana state official, seeking a declaratory judgment that the State's unemployment compensation law, which required the employers to make contributions to a state compensation fund, was unconstitutional. The lower courts had dismissed the complaint on the ground that the challenged law was constitutional. This Court affirmed the dismissal, "but solely on the ground that, in the appropriate exercise of the court's discretion, relief by way of a declaratory judgment should have been denied without consideration [401 U.S. 66, 70] of the merits." Id., at 301-302. The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Mr. Chief Justice Stone, noted first that under long-settled principles of equity, the federal courts could not have enjoined the Louisiana official from collecting the state tax at issue there unless, as was not true in that case, there was no adequate remedy available in the courts of the State. This judicial doctrine had been approved by Congress in the then-recent Tax Injunction Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 738, now 28 U.S.C. 1341. Although the declaratory judgment sought by the plaintiffs was a statutory remedy rather than a traditional form of equitable relief, the Court made clear that a suit for declaratory judgment was nevertheless "essentially an equitable cause of action," and was "analogous to the equity jurisdiction in suits quia timet or for a decree quieting title." 319 U.S., at 300 . In addition, the legislative history of the Federal Declaratory Judgment Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 955, as amended, 28 U.S.C. 2201, showed that Congress had explicitly contemplated that the courts would decide to grant or withhold declaratory relief on the basis of traditional equitable principles. Accordingly, the Court held that in an action for a declaratory judgment, "the district court was as free as in any other suit in equity to grant or withhold the relief prayed, upon equitable grounds." 319 U.S., at 300 . The Court's application of these principles to the specific problem of declaratory judgments relating to the collection of state taxes is worth quoting in full, because it bears so directly on the problem before us in the present case:
We do not mean to suggest that a declaratory judgment should never be issued in cases of this type if it has been concluded that injunctive relief would be improper. There may be unusual circumstances in which an injunction might be withheld because, despite a plaintiff's strong claim for relief under the established standards, the injunctive remedy seemed particularly intrusive or offensive; in such a situation, a declaratory judgment might be appropriate and might not be contrary to the basic equitable doctrines governing the availability of relief. Ordinarily, however, the practical effect of the two forms of relief will be virtually identical, and the basic policy against federal interference with pending state criminal prosecutions will be frustrated as much by a declaratory judgment as it would be by an injunction.
For the reasons we have stated, we hold that the court below erred in proceeding to a consideration of the merits of the New York criminal anarchy law. Here, as in the Great Lakes case, the judgment dismissing the complaint was based on an adjudication that the statutes challenged here are constitutional and is thus in effect a declaratory judgment. We affirm the judgment dismissing the complaint, but solely on the ground that, in the appropriate exercise of the court's discretion, relief by way of declaratory judgment should have been denied without consideration of the merits. We, of course, express [401 U.S. 66, 74] no views on the propriety of declaratory relief when no state proceeding is pending at the time the federal suit is begun.
[ Footnote 2 ] The complaint in No. 7 was filed in the Southern District of New York. The complaint in No. 9 was originally filed in the Eastern District, but was later transferred to the Southern District by consent.
[ Footnote 3 ] The court also said that even if its view on the merits was wrong, relief should be withheld because the statutes being challenged were no longer in effect. With respect to the plaintiffs' challenge to the selection of the grand jury, the District Court held, in reliance on Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157 (1943), that this claim could be effectively presented to the New York courts and therefore did not call for federal intervention at this stage.
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.
The same New York statutes on anarchy that were sustained in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 , are involved in these cases. It was in that case that Mr. Justice Holmes, with whom Mr. Justice Brandeis concurred, said in dissent:
Brandenburg, however, is of no help to these appellants. For while some of the counts embrace only advocacy or acts which fall within its penumbra, still others are in the field of activities far removed from the protection of the First Amendment. There is a question concerning some of the overt acts - whether, as I asked in my dissent in Epton v. New York, 390 U.S. 29, 30 , a constitutionally protected right such as speech or assembly may be used as an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy. But other overt acts relate to the acquisition of weapons, gunpowder, and the like, and the storing of gasoline to start fires. Persuasion by such means plainly has no First Amendment protection.
It therefore cannot be said that the cases against Samuels and Fernandez are palpably unconstitutional. It is for the state courts by sifting out the chaff from the charges through motions to strike, instructions to the jury, and other procedural devices to preserve such First Amendment rights as may be involved here. Certainly violence has no sanctuary in the First Amendment, and the use of weapons, gunpowder, and gasoline may not constitutionally masquerade under the guise of "advocacy."
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITE and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL join, concurring in the result.
I agree that the judgment of the District Court should be affirmed. All the appellants had been indicted for violation of the New York Criminal Anarchy Law before [401 U.S. 66, 76] their suit in federal court was filed. They have not alleged facts amounting to bad-faith harassment. Therefore, neither a declaratory judgment nor an injunction would be proper. Perez v. Ledesma, post, p. 93 (separate opinion of BRENNAN, J.). [401 U.S. 66, 77]
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Citation: 401 U.S. 66
Docket No: No. 7
Argued: April 01, 1969
Decided: February 23, 1971
Court: United States Supreme Court
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