O'Shea v. Littleton

414 U.S. 488, 94 S. Ct. 669, 38 L. Ed. 2d 674, 1974 U.S. LEXIS 41

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: January 15, 1974
• Docket: 72-953
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The respondents are 19 named individuals who commenced this civil rights action, individually and on behalf of a class of citizens of the city of Cairo, Illinois, against the State’s Attorney for Alexander County, Illinois, his investigator, the Police Commissioner of Cairo, and the petitioners here, Michael O’Shea and Dorothy Spomer, Magistrate and Associate Judge of the Alexander County Circuit Court, respectively, alleging that they have intentionally engaged in, and are continuing to engage in, various patterns and practices of conduct in the administration of the criminal justice system in Alexander County that deprive respondents of rights secured by the First, Sixth, Eighth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and by 42 U. S. C. §§ 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1985. The complaint, as amended, alleges that since the early 1960’s, black citizens of Cairo, together with a small number of white persons on their behalf, have been actively, peaceably and lawfully seeking equality of opportunity and treatment in employment, housing, education, participation in governmental decisionmaking and in ordinary day-to-day relations with white citizens and officials of Cairo, and have, as an important part of their protest, participated in, and encouraged others to participate in, an economic boycott of city merchants who respondents consider have engaged in racial discrimination. Allegedly, there 'had resulted a great deal of tension and antagonism among the white citizens and officials of Cairo.

The individual respondents are 17 black and two white residents of Cairo. The class, or classes, which they purport to represent are alleged to include “all those who, on account of their race or creed and because of their exercise of First Amendment rights, have [been] in the past and continue to be subjected to the unconstitutional and selectively discriminatory enforcement and administration of criminal justice in Alexander County,” as well as financially poor persons “who, on account of their poverty, are unable to afford bail, or are unable to afford counsel and jury trials in city ordinance violation cases.” The complaint charges the State’s Attorney, his investigator, and the Police Commissioner with a pattern and practice of intentional racial discrimination in the performance of their duties, by which the state criminal laws and procedures are deliberately applied more harshly to black residents of Cairo and inadequately applied to white persons who victimize blacks, to deter respondents from engaging in their lawful attempt to achieve equality. Specific supporting examples of such conduct involving some of the individual respondents are detailed in the complaint as to the State’s Attorney and his investigator.

With respect to the petitioners, the county magistrate and judge, a continuing pattern and practice of conduct, under color of law, is alleged to have denied and to continue to deny the constitutional rights of respondents and members of their class in three respects:

(1) petitioners set bond in criminal cases according to an unofficial bond schedule without regard to the facts of a case or circumstances of an individual defendant in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments;

(2) “on information and belief” they set sentences higher and impose harsher conditions for respondents and members of their class than for white persons, and (3) they require respondents and members of their class when charged with violations of city ordinances which carry fines and possible jail penalties if the fine cannot be paid, to pay for a trial by jury' in violation of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Each of these continuing practices is alleged to have been carried out intentionally to deprive respondents and their class of the protections of the county criminal justice system and to deter them from engaging in their boycott and similar activities. The complaint further alleges that there is no adequate remedy at law and requests that the practices be enjoined. No damages were sought against the petitioners in this case, nor were any specific instances involving the individually named respondents set forth in the claim against these judicial officers.

The District Court dismissed the case for want of jurisdiction to issue the injunctive relief prayed for and on the ground that petitioners were immune from suit with respect to acts done in the course of their judicial duties. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 554 (1967), on which the District Court relied, did not forbid the issuance of injunctions against judicial officers if it is alleged and proved that they have knowingly engaged in conduct intended to discriminate against a cognizable class of persons on the basis of race; Absent sufficient remedy at law, the Court of Appeals ruled that in the event respondents proved their allegations, the District Court should proceed to fashion appropriate injunctive relief to prevent petitioners from depriving others of their constitutional rights in the course of carrying out their judicial duties in the future.¹ We granted certiorari. 411 U. S. 915 (1973).

I

We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The complaint failed to satisfy the threshold requirement imposed by Art. Ill of the Constitution that those who seek to invoke the power of federal courts must allege an actual case or controversy. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 94-101 (1968); Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411, 421-425 (1969) (opinion of Marshall, J.). Plaintiffs in the federal courts “must allege soxpe threatened or actual injury resulting from the putatively illegal action before a federal court may assume jurisdiction.” Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 617 (1973).² There must be a “personal stake in the outcome” such as to “assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions.” Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962). Nor is the principle different where statutory issues are raised. Cf. United States v. SCRAP, 412 U. S. 669, 687 (1973). Abstract injury is not enough. It must be alleged that the plaintiff “has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury” as the result of the challenged statute or official conduct. Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488 (1923). The injury or threat of injury must be both “real and immediate,” not “conjectural” or “hypothetical.” Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U. S. 103, 109-110 (1969); Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U. S. 270, 273 (1941); United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U. S. 75, 89-91 (1947). Moreover, if none of the named plaintiffs purporting to represent a class establishes the requisite of a case or controversy with the defendants, none may seek relief on behalf of himself or any other member of the class.³ Bailey v. Patterson, 369 U. S. 31, 32-33 (1962); Indiana Employment Division v. Burney, 409 U. S. 540 (1973). See 3B J. Moore, Federal Practice, ¶ 23.10-1, n. 8 (2d ed. 1971).

In the complaint that began this action, the sole allegations of injury are that petitioners “have engaged in and continue to engage in, a pattern and practice of conduct ... all of which has deprived and continues to deprive plaintiffs and members of their class of their” constitutional rights and, again, that petitioners “have denied and continue to deny to plaintiffs and members of their class their constitutional rights” by illegal bond-setting, sentencing, and jury-fee practices. None of the named plaintiffs is identified as himself having suffered any injury in the manner specified. In sharp contrast to the claim for relief against the State’s Attorney where specific instances of misconduct with respect to particular individuals are alleged, the claim against petitioners alleges injury in only the most general terms. At oral argument, respondents’ counsel stated that some of the named plaintiffs-respondents, who could be identified by name if necessary, had actually been defendants in proceedings before petitioners and had suffered from the alleged unconstitutional practices.⁴ Past exposure to illegal conduct does not in itself show a present case or controversy regarding injunctive relief, however, if unaccompanied by any continuing, present adverse effects. Neither the complaint nor respondents’ counsel suggested that any of the named plaintiffs at the time the complaint was filed were themselves serving an allegedly illegal sentence or were on trial or awaiting trial before petitioners. Indeed, if any of the respondents were then serving an assertedly unlawful sentence, the complaint would inappropriately be seeking relief from or modification of current, existing custody. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475 (1973). Furthermore, if any were then on trial or awaiting trial in state proceedings, the complaint would be seeking injunctive relief that a federal court should not provide. Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971); see also Part II, infra. We thus do not strain to read inappropriate meaning into the con-clusory allegations of this complaint.

Of course, past wrongs are evidence bearing on whether there is a real and immediate threat of repeated injury. But here the prospect of future injury rests on the likelihood that respondents will again be arrested for and charged with violations of the criminal law and will again be subjected to bond proceedings, trial, or sentencing before petitioners. Important to this assessment is the absence of allegations that any relevant criminal statute of the State of Illinois is unconstitutional on its face or as applied or that respondents have been or will be improperly charged with violating criminal law. If the statutes that might possibly be enforced against respondents are valid laws, and if charges under these statutes are not improvidently made or pressed, the question becomes whether any perceived threat to respondents is sufficiently real and immediate to show an existing controversy simply because they anticipate violating lawful criminal statutes and being tried for their offenses, in which event they may appear before petitioners and, if they do, will be affected by the allegedly illegal conduct charged. Apparently, the proposition is that if respondents proceed to violate an unchallenged law and if they are charged, held to answer, and tried in any proceedings before petitioners, they will be subjected to the discriminatory practices that petitioners are alleged to have followed. But it seems to us that attempting to anticipate whether and when these respondents will be charged with crime and will be made to appear before either petitioner takes us into the area of speculation and conjecture. See Younger v. Harris, supra, at 41-42. The nature of respondents’ activities is not described in detail and no specific threats are alleged to have been made against them. Accepting that they are deeply involved in a program to eliminate racial discrimination in Cairo and that tensions are high, we are nonetheless unable to. conclude that the case-or-controversy requirement is satisfied by general assertions or inferences that in the course of their activities respondents will be prosecuted for violating valid criminal laws. We assume that respondents will conduct their activities within the law and so avoid prosecution and conviction as well as exposure to the challenged course of conduct said to be followed by petitioners.

As in Golden v. Zwickler, we doubt that there is “ ‘sufficient immediacy and reality’ ” to respondents’ allegations of future injury to warrant invocation of the jurisdiction of the District Court. There, “it was wholly conjectural that another occasion might arise when Zwickler might be prosecuted for distributing the handbills referred to in the complaint.” 394 U. S., at 109. Here we can only speculate whether respondents will be arrested, either again or for the first time, for violating a municipal ordinance or a state statute, particularly in the absence of any allegations that unconstitutional criminal statutes are being employed to deter constitutionally protected conduct. Cf. Perez v. Ledesma, 401 U. S. 82, 101-102 (1971) (opinion of Brennan, J.). Even though Zwickler attacked a specific statute under which he had previously-been prosecuted, the threat of a new prosecution was not sufficiently imminent to satisfy the jurisdictional requirements of the federal courts. Similarly, respondents here have not pointed to any imminent prosecutions contemplated against any of their number and they naturally do not suggest that any one of them expects to violate valid criminal laws. Yet their vulnerability to the alleged threatened injury from which relief is sought is necessarily contingent upon the bringing of prosecutions against one or more of them. Under these circumstances, where respondents do not claim any constitutional right to engage in conduct proscribed by therefore presumably permissible state laws, or indicate that it is otherwise their intention to so conduct themselves, the threat of injury from the alleged course of conduct they attack is simply too remote to satisfy the case-or-controversy requirement and permit adjudication by a federal court.

In Boyle v. Landry, 401 U. S. 77, 81 (1971), the Court ordered a complaint dismissed for insufficiency of its allegations where there was no basis for inferring “that any one or more of the citizens who brought this suit is in any jeopardy of suffering irreparable injury if the State is left free to prosecute under the intimidation statute in the normal manner.” The Court expressed the view that “the normal course of state criminal prosecutions cannot be disrupted or blocked on the basis of charges which in the last analysis amount to nothing more than speculation about the future.” Ibid. A similar element of uncertainty about whether the alleged injury will be likely to .occur is present in this case, and a similar reluctance to interfere with the normal operation of state administration of its criminal laws in the manner sought by respondents strengthens the conclusion that the allegations in this complaint are too insubstantial to warrant federal adjudication of the merits of respondents’ claim.

The foregoing considerations obviously shade into those determining whether the complaint states a sound basis for equitable relief; and even if we were inclined to consider the complaint as presenting an existing case or controversy, we would firmly disagree with the Court of Appeals that an adequate basis for equitable relief against petitioners had been stated. The Court has recently reaffirmed the “basic doctrine of equity jurisprudence that courts of equity should not act, and particularly should not act to restrain a criminal prosecution, when the moving party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury if denied equitable relief.” Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37, 43-44 (1971). Additionally, recognition of the need for a proper balance in the concurrent operation of federal and state courts counsels restraint against the issuance of injunctions against state officers engaged in the administration of the State’s criminal laws in the absence of a showing of irreparable injury which is “ Toth great and immediate.’ ” Id., at 46. See, e.g., Fenner v. Boykin, 271 U. S. 240 (1926); Douglas v. City of Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157 (1943). In holding that 42 U. S. C. § 1983 is an Act of Congress that falls within the “expressly authorized” exception to the absolute bar against federal injunctions directed at state court proceedings provided by 28 U. S. C. § 2283, the Court expressly observed that it did not intend to “question or qualify in any way the principles of equity, comity, and federalism that must restrain a federal court when asked to enjoin a state court proceeding.” Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 243 (1972). Those principles preclude equitable intervention in the circumstances present here.

Respondents do not seek to strike down a single state statute, either on its face or as applied; nor do they seek to enjoin any criminal prosecutions that might be brought under a challenged criminal law. In fact, respondents apparently contemplate that prosecutions will be brought under seemingly valid state laws. What they seek is an injunction aimed at controlling or preventing the occurrence of specific events that might take place in the course of future state criminal trials. The order the Court of Appeals thought should be available if respondents proved their allegations would be operative only where permissible state prosecutions are pending against one or more of the beneficiaries of the injunction. Apparently the order would contemplate interruption , of state proceedings to adjudicate assertions of noncompliance by petitioners. This seems to us nothing less than an ongoing federal audit of state criminal proceedings which would indirectly accomplish the kind of interference that Younger v. Harris, supra, and related cases sought to prevent.

A federal court should not intervene to establish the basis for future intervention that would be so intrusive and unworkable. In concluding that injunctive relief would be available in this case because it would not interfere with prosecutions to be commenced under challenged statutes, the Court of Appeals misconceived the underlying basis for withholding federal equitable relief when the normal course of criminal proceedings in the state courts would otherwise be disrupted. The objection is to unwarranted anticipatory interference in the state criminal process by means of continuous or piecemeal interruptions of the state proceedings by litigation in the federal courts; the object is to sustain “[t]he special delicacy of the adjustment to be preserved between federal equitable power and State administration of its own law.” Stefanelli v. Minara, 342 U. S. 117, (1951).⁵ See also Cleary v. Bolger, 371 U. S. 392 (1963); Wilson v. Schnettler, 365 U. S. 381 (1961); Pugach v. Dollinger, 365 U. S. 458 (1961); cf. Rea v. United States, 350 U. S. 214 (1956). An injunction of the type contemplated by respondents and the Court of Appeals would disrupt the normal course of proceedings in the state courts via resort to the federal suit for determination of the claim ab initio, just as would the request for injunctive relief from an ongoing state prosecution against the federal plaintiff which was found to be unwarranted in Younger. Moreover, it would require for its enforcement the continuous supervision by the federal court over the conduct of the petitioners in the course of future criminal trial proceedings involving any of the members of the respondents’ broadly defined class.⁶ The Court of Appeals disclaimed any intention of requiring the District Court to sit in constant day-to-day supervision of these judicial officers, but the “periodic reporting” system it thought might be warranted ⁷ would constitute a form of monitoring of the operation of state court functions that is antipathetic to established principles of comity. Cf. Greenwood v. Peacock, 384 U. S. 808 (1966). Moreover, because an injunction against acts which might occur in the course of future criminal proceedings would necessarily impose continuing obligations of compliance, the question arises of how compliance might be enforced if the beneficiaries of the injunction were to charge that it had been disobeyed. Presumably, any member of respondents’ class who appeared as an accused before petitioners could allege and have adjudicated a claim that petitioners were in contempt of the federal court’s injunction order, with review of adverse decisions in the Court of Appeals and, perhaps, in this Court. Apart from the inherent difficulties in defining the proper standards against which such claims might be measured, and the significant problems of proving noncompliance in individual cases, such a major continuing intrusion of the equitable power of the federal courts into the daily conduct of state criminal proceedings is in sharp conflict with the principles of equitable restraint which this Court has recognized in the decisions previously noted.

Respondents have failed, moreover, to establish the basic requisites of the issuance of equitable relief in these circumstances — the likelihood of substantial and immediate irreparable injury, and the inadequacy of remedies at law. We have already canvassed the necessarily conjectural nature of the threatened injury to which respondents are allegedly .subjected. And if any of the respondents are ever prosecuted and face trial, or if they are illegally sentenced, there are available state and federal procedures which could provide relief from the wrongful conduct alleged. Open to a victim of the discriminatory practices asserted under state law are the right to a substitution of judge or a change of venue, Ill. Rev. Stat., c. 38, §§ 114-5, 114-6 (1971), review on direct appeal or on postconviction collateral review, and the opportunity to demonstrate that the conduct of these judicial officers is so prejudicial to the administration of justice that available disciplinary proceedings, including the possibility of suspension or removal, are warranted. Ill. Const., Art. VI, § 15 (e). In appropriate circumstances, moreover, federal habeas relief would undoubtedly be available.

Nor is it true that unless the injunction sought is available federal law will exercise no deterrent effect in these circumstances. Judges who would willfully discriminate on the ground of race or otherwise would willfully deprive the citizen of his constitutional rights, as this complaint alleges, must take account of 18 U. S. C. § 242. See Greenwood v. Peacock, supra, at 830; United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 793-794 (1966); United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 753-754 (1966); Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91, 101-106 (1945); United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941). Cf. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 187 (1961). That section provides:

“Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any inhabitant of any State ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such inhabitant being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined . . . or imprisoned . . . .”

Whatever may be the case with respect to civil liability generally, see Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967), or civil liability for willful corruption, see Alzua v. Johnson, 231 U. S. 106, 110-111 (1913); Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, 347, 350, 354 (1872), we have never held that the performance of the duties of judicial, legislative, or executive officers, requires or contemplates the immunization of otherwise criminal deprivations of constitutional rights. Cf. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339 (1880). On the contrary, the- judicially fashioned doctrine of official immunity does not reach “so far as to immunize criminal conduct proscribed by an Act of Congress . . . .” Gravel v. United States, 408 U. S. 606, 627 (1972).

Considering the availability of other avenues of relief open to respondents for the serious conduct they assert, and the abrasive and unmanageable intercession which the injunctive relief they seek would represent, we conclude that, apart from the absence of an existing case or controversy presented by respondents for adjudication, the Court of Appeals erred in deciding that the District Court should entertain respondents’ claim.

Reversed.

1 While the Court of Appeals did not attempt to specify exactly what type of injunctive relief might be justified, it at least suggested that it might include a requirement of “periodic reports of various types of aggregate data on actions on bail and sentencing.” 468 F. 2d, at 416. The dissenting judge urged that a federal district court has no power to supervise and regulate by mandatory injunction the discretion which state court judges may exercise within the limits of the powers vested in them by law, and that any relief contemplated by the majority holding which might be applicable to the pattern and practice alleged, if proven, would subject the petitioners to the continuing supervision of the District Court, the necessity of defending their motivations in each instance when the fixing of bail or sentence was challenged by a Negro defendant as inconsistent with the equitable relief granted, and the possibility of a contempt citation for failure to comply with the relief awarded. Id., at 415-417.

2 We have previously noted that “Congress may enact statutes creating legal rights, the invasion of which creates standing, even though no injury would exist without the statute. See, e. g., Traficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U. S. 205, 212 (1972) (White, J., concurring); Hardin v. Kentucky Utilities Co., 390 U. S. 1, 6 (1968).” Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U. S. 614, 617 n. 3 (1973). But such statutes do not purport to bestow the right to sue in the absence of any indication that invasion of the statutory right has occurred or is likely to occur. Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983, in particular, provides for liability to the “party injured” in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. Perforce, the constitutional requirement of an actual case or controversy remains. Respondents still must show actual or threatened injury of some ldnd to establish standing in the constitutional sense.

3 There was no class determination in this case as the complaint was dismissed on grounds which did not require that determination to be made. Petitioners assert that the lack of standing of the named respondents to raise the class claim is buttressed by the incongruous nature of the class respondents seek to represent. The class is variously and incompatibly defined in the complaint as those residents of Cairo, both Negro and white, who have boycotted certain businesses in that city and engaged in similar activities for the purpose of combatting racial discrimination, as a class of all Negro citizens suffering racial discrimination in the application of the criminal justice system in Alexander County (though two white persons are named respondents), and as all poor persons unable to afford bail, counsel, or jury trials in city ordinance cases. The absence of specific claims of injury as a result of any of the wrongful practices charged, in light of the ambiguous and contradictory class definition proffered, bolsters our conclusion that these respondents cannot invoke federal jurisdiction to hear the claims they present in support of their request for injunctive relief.

4 Tr. of Oral Arg. 21, 23, 26.

5 It was noted in Stefanelli that in suits brought under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 “we have withheld relief in equity even when recognizing that comparable facts would create a cause of action for damages. Compare Giles v. Harris, 189 U. S. 475, with Lane v. Wilson, 307 U. S. 268.” 342 U. S., at 122.

6 See n. 3, supra.

7 See n. 1, supra.