Winn v. CookWinn v. Cook
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Hartz, Phillips, Eid
Applicant Douglas Ray Winn seeks a certificate of appealability (COA) to appeal the denial by the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma of his application for relief under
I. BACKGROUND
Applicant was charged in Oklahoma state court with domestic abuse (assault and battery) and related offenses. At a pretrial hearing he signed a waiver of his right to a jury trial so that he could qualify for a state mental-health court program. Because he did not complete the program, his case was put back on the trial docket. He then filed a motion in the state trial court for reinstatement of a jury trial, stating his waiver was not knowing, willing, or voluntary. There was no transcript of the pretrial hearing, so the court held an evidentiary hearing. Applicant testified that he had believed he was signing paperwork to enter the mental-health program, rather than signing a waiver, because he
Applicant filed a petition for emergency relief with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) seeking either a writ of prohibition or writ of mandamus. But the OCCA ruled that Applicant could not establish that the lower court’s denial of his jury-trial motion was “unauthorized by law,” as required for a writ of prohibition, nor could he show that he had a “clear legal right to the relief sought,” as required for a writ of mandamus. Aplt. App. at 139–41 (Okla. Crim. App., Order Den. Pet. (June 29, 2018) at 2–3).
Applicant then sought federal-court relief under § 2241, requesting an order requiring the state court to provide him a jury trial. The State responded that Applicant had validly waived his right to a jury trial, and the district court agreed. The court also held (1) that Applicant had exhausted his available state remedies by raising his invalid-waiver claim in the state trial court and then seeking emergency relief from the OCCA on the same ground, and (2) that it was not required to abstain from exercising jurisdiction under Younger. Because we hold that the district court should have abstained, we need not address any other issues.
Applicant is not entitled to a COA if no reasonable jurist would find it debatable that his application (1) fails to state a valid constitutional claim or (2) is procedurally barred. See Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). He fails on the procedural prong, because the district court was required to abstain under Younger. We review de novo the district court’s ruling regarding abstention. See Walck v. Edmonson, 472 F.3d 1227, 1232 (10th Cir. 2007).
III. YOUNGER ABSTENTION
A. The General Rule
Under the Younger abstention doctrine, federal courts are to abstain from exercising jurisdiction to interfere with state proceedings when the following three requirements are met:
(1) there is an ongoing state criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding, (2) the state court provides an adequate forum to hear the claims raised in the federal complaint, and (3) the state proceedings involve important state interests, matters which traditionally look to state law for their resolution or implicate separately articulated state policies.
Chapman v. Oklahoma, 472 F.3d 747, 749 (10th Cir. 2006). All three requirements are satisfied here. First, the parties do not dispute that there is an ongoing state criminal proceeding.
With regard to the second factor, “unless state law clearly bars the interposition of the federal statutory and constitutional claims,” a plaintiff typically has “an adequate opportunity to raise federal claims in state court.” Crown Point I, LLC v. Intermountain Rural Elec. Ass’n, 319 F.3d 1211, 1215 (10th Cir. 2003) (brackets and internal quotation
Finally, the third Younger requirement is met. For the purposes of Younger, state criminal proceedings are viewed as “a traditional area of state concern.” Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Okla v. Oklahoma ex rel. Thompson, 874 F.2d 709, 713 (10th Cir. 1989); see Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 931 (1975) (injunction against state criminal-enforcement activities “seriously impairs the State’s interest in enforcing its criminal
B. Exceptions/Irreparable Injury
1. In General
When Younger’s three requirements are met, abstention is mandatory unless one of three exceptions applies: the prosecution was “(1) commenced in bad faith or to harass, (2) based on a flagrantly and patently unconstitutional statute, or (3) related to any other such extraordinary circumstance creating a threat of ‘irreparable injury’ both great and immediate.” Phelps v. Hamilton, 59 F.3d 1058, 1063–64 (10th Cir. 1995). Because (1) neither Applicant nor the federal district court has suggested that there was bad faith or harassment in state court and (2) there has been no challenge to the constitutionality of any statute, we consider only whether the alleged violation of Applicant’s right to a jury trial constitutes an irreparable injury meriting an exception to Younger.
Younger said that “irreparable injury” significant enough to permit federal court interference must pose a “threat to the plaintiff’s federally protected rights . . . that cannot be eliminated by his defense against a single criminal prosecution.” 401 U.S. at 46. “[T]he cost, anxiety, and inconvenience of having to defend against a single criminal prosecution, could not by themselves be considered ‘irreparable’ in the special legal sense of that term.” Id. If there is no injury “other than that incidental to every criminal proceeding brought lawfully and in good faith,” id. at 47, there is no irreparable injury.
In accord with this authority, we have consistently refused to find an exception to Younger when the injury could ultimately be corrected through the pending state proceeding or on appeal. In Sweeten v. Sneddon, 463 F.2d 713, 714–15 (10th Cir. 1972), we considered a claim that a Utah state court was violating a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights by refusing to appoint counsel. The right to counsel is a fundamental trial right recognized by the Sixth Amendment. See Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 368 (1993) (“Our decisions have emphasized that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel exists in order to protect the fundamental right to a fair trial.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Yet we held that the district court erred in enjoining the state proceeding
Other circuits have similarly interpreted “irreparable injury” under Younger. See Lansing, 851 F.2d at 73–74, 77 (Younger prevented issuance of order directing state court to either release defendant or prevent state judge from disallowing the defendant’s peremptory challenges under Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986); defendant’s claim that he would “suffer irreparable harm if his trial proceeds with an improperly constituted jury” was rejected because “burden of defending a criminal prosecution is, of course, insufficient without more to constitute irreparable harm”); Palmer v. City of Chicago, 755 F.2d 560, 575–76 (7th Cir. 1985) (Younger barred injunction restraining state officials from continuing alleged practice of withholding material exculpatory evidence from defendants facing trial; the constitutional claims could be adequately raised in the
It is important to note than in several of these cases the relief granted by a state appeal would likely not terminate the prosecution of the defendant but would result only in a new trial. See Sweeten, 463 F.2d at 715 (denial of counsel in first trial); Lansing, 851 F.2d at 76 (alleged Batson error at first trial); Palmer, 755 F.2d at 575–76 (alleged withholding of exculpatory evidence at first trial); Muellar, 643 F.2d at 525 (failure to properly extradite Indian from reservation).
So when would a defendant suffer irreparable injury from state trial proceedings if relief could come only after an appeal? The federal courts have recognized two circumstances: (1) when the defendant’s trial is being delayed in violation of the constitutional right to a speedy trial, and (2) when the current trial would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.1
The first circumstance was recognized by the Supreme Court in Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky, 410 U.S. 484, 485 (1973), though the Court did not explicitly discuss Younger’s requirements or exceptions. The defendant complained that the State had violated his Sixth Amendment speedy-trial right by not bringing him to trial while he was confined in another State. See id. at 485–86. The Court upheld the federal district court’s order that the State bring him to trial or release him. See id. at 486. In doing so, the Court distinguished between two aspects of the right to a speedy trial: it was ordering a state court to conduct a speedy trial, not requiring the state court to dismiss a charge because it had not been tried in a timely fashion. The Court permitted the defendant’s effort to seek “enforcement of the [State’s] affirmative constitutional obligation to bring [the petitioner] promptly to trial,” but was not authorizing an effort to
Braden did not characterize its holding as an exception to the Younger doctrine. It apparently thought that Younger was only marginally relevant (receiving merely a cf. citation in a string cite on the exhaustion doctrine, see id. at 491) because of the absence of a significant federalism interest, see id. at 491–92. But lower courts have examined the significance of Braden to the Younger irreparable-injury exception. See Dolack, 548 F.2d at 894 (reading Braden as recognizing a “special circumstance[] . . . to take the case out of the Younger doctrine”); Carden v. Montana, 626 F.2d 82, 84 (9th Cir. 1980) (noting the limited scope of Braden and reversing dismissal by district court of pending criminal charge on ground of denial of speedy trial); Moore v. DeYoung, 515 F.2d 437, 445–46 (3d Cir. 1975) (district court’s permanent injunction against defendant’s state criminal proceedings because of alleged speedy-trial violation was “precisely the situation anticipated” by Braden that should be prohibited under Younger).
So why does a defendant face irreparable injury when he seeks an order requiring that he be brought to trial but not when he seeks dismissal of the charges against him on the ground that he has been denied a speedy trial? It is because in the first situation the violation of the defendant’s rights is becoming more severe every day his trial is delayed,
The absence of irreparable injury in the latter circumstance was explained by the Supreme Court in United States v. MacDonald, 435 U.S. 850 (1978). There the Court needed to determine whether denial of the defendant’s pretrial motion to dismiss on speedy-trial grounds was a final order that could be immediately appealed. See MacDonald, 435 U.S. at 850, 857–58. The answer depended on the application of the collateral-order doctrine, which treats certain interlocutory orders as final and appealable. See id. at 853–54. One of the doctrine’s requirements for finality is that denial of the appeal could cause irreparable damage to an important right. See id. at 854–55. MacDonald held that an order rejecting a motion to dismiss for denial of the right to a speedy trial did not satisfy that requirement of the collateral-order doctrine (or any other requirement, for that matter). See id. at 860–61. “The order sought to be appealed,” said the Court, “may not accurately be described, in the sense that the description has been employed, as involving an important right which would be lost, probably irreparably, if review had to await final judgment.” Id. at 860 (internal quotation marks omitted). It explained:
[T]he Speedy Trial Clause does not, either on its face or according to the decisions of this Court, encompass a “right not to be tried” which must be upheld prior to trial if it is to be enjoyed at all. It is the delay before trial,
not the trial itself, that offends against the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial. If the [accused is denied] his right to a speedy trial, that loss, by definition, occurs before trial. Proceeding with the trial does not cause or compound the deprivation already suffered.
Id. at 861. The Ninth Circuit in Carden, 626 F.2d at 84, similarly determined that “the Speedy Trial Clause, when raised as an affirmative defense, does not embody a right which is necessarily forfeited by delaying review until after trial.” The court reversed the district court’s grant of habeas relief because the defendants had “not shown how they [would] be irreparably injured by waiting until after trial to assert their speedy trial claim.” Id.
3. Double Jeopardy
This court has recognized a second circumstance in which Younger does not require abstention from orders affecting a criminal trial: “where a criminal accused presents a colorable claim that a forthcoming second state trial will constitute a violation of her double jeopardy rights.” Walck, 472 F.3d at 1234. Requiring a defendant to go to trial in violation of the Double Jeopardy Clause causes injury that cannot be remedied after the trial begins. As we explained:
“[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause . . . is a guarantee against being twice put to trial for the same offense. The guarantee’s protections would be lost if the accused were forced to run the gauntlet a second time before an appeal could be taken; even if the accused is acquitted, or, if convicted, has his conviction ultimately reversed on double jeopardy grounds, he has still been forced to endure a trial that the Double Jeopardy Clause was designed to prohibit.”
Id. at 1233 (quoting Abney v. United States, 431 U.S. 651, 660–62 (1977)) (further brackets, ellipses, and internal quotation marks omitted). “‘A requirement that a
Circuit courts have not recognized any exceptions to Younger—outside the context of the speedy-trial and double-jeopardy claims just discussed—when the defendant is seeking relief regarding the trial itself. See In re Justices of Superior Court Dep’t of Mass. Trial Court, 218 F.3d 11, 19 (1st Cir. 2000) (“With the notable exceptions of cases involving double jeopardy and certain speedy trial claims, federal habeas relief, as a general rule, is not available to defendants seeking pretrial review of constitutional challenges to state criminal proceedings.”); Olsson v. Curran, 328 F. App’x 334, 335 (7th Cir. 2009) (“Relief for state pretrial detainees through a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus is generally limited to speedy trial and double jeopardy claims.”). Younger does not require abstention in the two exceptional circumstances because “federal intervention is necessary to prevent the challenge from becoming moot.” Sweeney, 612 F.3d at 573.
We now turn to whether abstention was required in this case. Relying on Braden and Walck, the district court concluded that Younger would not preclude the relief sought by Applicant because he “could be irreparably harmed if the state proceeds with a non-jury trial based on [his] allegedly invalid waiver of his right to a jury trial.” District Ct. Order at 9. We respectfully disagree. A nonjury trial would not cause Applicant irreparable injury in the sense relevant to Younger.
The district court’s decision that Younger does not bar a federal court from ordering that a defendant’s upcoming state trial be held before a jury rather than a judge is (to our knowledge) unprecedented. Our analysis begins with an examination of the constitutional right to a jury trial. The Sixth Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a . . . trial, by an impartial jury.”
Supporting our view is the apparent standard practice of ordering a trial by jury when the defendant has been unconstitutionally denied a jury trial and been subjected to a nonjury trial. See United States v. Pina, 844 F.2d 1, 11 (1st Cir. 1988) (setting aside contempt convictions and remanding for jury trial); United States v. Craner, 652 F.2d 23, 27 (9th Cir. 1981) (“It accords with the relevant state and federal practice that Craner have the jury trial he seeks”); cf. United States v. Hamdan, 552 F.2d 276, 280 (9th Cir. 1977) (holding “appellants are entitled to a jury trial” after determining it was constitutional error to deny jury trial). Implicit in this practice is the recognition that the harm of denial of a jury at the first trial can be cured by providing a jury at a later trial.
Applicant can be provided a jury trial if his claim ultimately prevails in state court. We therefore hold that Younger denies him access to the federal courts at this stage of the proceedings.
IV. CONCLUSION
We DENY a COA and DISMISS the appeal.
Notes
Also, the Supreme Court has held that Younger does not apply to injunctions sought by a defendant when grant of the injunction “could not prejudice the conduct of the trial on the merits.” Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 108 n. 9 (1975) (challenge to pretrial detention without a judicial hearing). The Ninth Circuit has held that in similar circumstances, abstention is also improper because the defendant faces irreparable injury. See Page v. King, 932 F.3d 898, 904 (9th Cir. 2019) (challenge to pretrial detention; because “loss of liberty for the time of pretrial detention is ‘irretrievable’ regardless of the outcome at trial,” defendant’s claim “fits squarely within the irreparable harm exception to Younger” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Arevalo v. Hennessy, 882 F.3d 763, 767 (9th Cir. 2018) (Younger did not preclude adjudicating pretrial habeas petition alleging defendant was being jailed without a constitutionally adequate bail hearing because “[d]eprivation of physical liberty by detention constitutes irreparable harm”).