Dubinka v. Judges of Superior Court of State of Cal. for County of Los Angeles

• Decision Date: 08 April 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-55736,92-55736
• Parties: Michael DUBINKA; John F. Coleman; Raul Meza, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JUDGES OF the SUPERIOR COURT OF the STATE OF CALIFORNIA for the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; Daniel Lungren, Attorney General of the State of California; Ira Reiner, District Attorney of Los Angeles County, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

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23 F.3d 218

Michael DUBINKA; John F. Coleman; Raul Meza, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. JUDGES OF the SUPERIOR COURT OF the STATE OF CALIFORNIA for

the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES; Daniel Lungren, Attorney General

of the State of California; Ira Reiner, District Attorney

of Los Angeles County, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 92-55736.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted Dec. 8, 1993.

Decided April 8, 1994.

Henry J. Hall, Deputy Public Defender, Los Angeles, CA, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Frederick R. Bennett, Asst. County Counsel, Donald E. de Nicola, Deputy Attorney Gen., Los Angeles, CA, for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California, John G. Davies, District Judge, Presiding.

Before: FLETCHER, PREGERSON and HALL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge FLETCHER.

FLETCHER, Circuit Judge:

Michael Dubinka, John Coleman, and Raul Meza appeal the district court's order dismissing their action for declaratory and injunctive relief for failure to state a claim under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The district court abstained under the doctrine established in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971). We affirm.

BACKGROUND

On June 5, 1990, California voters adopted a ballot initiative popularly referred to as Proposition 115, which significantly altered discovery in California criminal cases by requiring that discovery be reciprocal. Proposition 115 contained both constitutional and statutory provisions. First, it included a state constitutional provision mandating that discovery be reciprocal in criminal cases. ¹

Second, it added substantive discovery provisions to the California Penal Code. See Cal. Penal Code Secs. 1054-1054.7 (West Supp.1994).

The substantive discovery provisions require pretrial disclosure by defendants and their counsel of the identities, addresses, and statements of all witnesses whom the defense intends to call at trial. They also require the pretrial production of all physical evidence that the defense intends to introduce, pretrial disclosure of all expert reports and physical and mental examinations of the defendant, and pretrial production of scientific reports and experiments. Cal. Penal Code Sec. 1054.3 (West Supp.1994). The statute requires the State to disclose the identities, addresses, and statements of the witnesses it intends to call at trial, physical evidence that it has seized during its investigation, statements made by the defendant, and the same medical and scientific evidence that the defense is required to disclose. Cal. Penal Code Sec. 1054.1 (West Supp.1994). ²

The constitutionality of Proposition 115 has been challenged in California state courts. In Izazaga v. Superior Court, 54 Cal.3d 356, 815 P.2d 304, 285 Cal.Rptr. 231 (1991), the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state law against challenges that it violated the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Since Izazaga, the California Supreme Court has considered additional constitutional challenges to Proposition 115. E.g., People v. Superior Court (Mitchell), 5 Cal.4th 1229, 859 P.2d 102, 23 Cal.Rptr.2d 403, modified, 6 Cal.4th 951a (1993) (holding that Proposition 115's provisions apply to penalty phase of a capital trial, and the discovery of penalty phase evidence ordinarily should occur prior to commencement of guilt phase of trial, although court has discretion to defer disclosure until guilt phase is complete); In re Littlefield, 5 Cal.4th 122, 19 Cal.Rptr.2d 248, 851 P.2d 42 (1993) (holding that sections 1054.3 and 1054.5 authorize the court to order defense counsel to disclose address of person defense intends to call as witness at trial and to impose a contempt sanction for refusal to obey that order). ³

On March 23, 1992, appellants filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. The complaint alleged that Proposition 115 violated appellants' constitutional rights under the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The complaint named as defendants the Judges of the Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles, the California State Attorney General, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney.

At the time the federal complaint was filed, all of the appellants were defendants in pending criminal prosecutions in state court. On May 12, 1992, the district court dismissed the action on the grounds that abstention was appropriate under Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971). ⁴ Judgment was entered on May 14, 1992. Appellants timely appealed.

JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

The district court had jurisdiction over appellants' facial challenges to Proposition 115 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1331 & 1343 and 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291.

Younger abstention decisions are reviewed de novo. Gartrell Constr., Inc. v. Aubry, 940 F.2d 437, 441 (9th Cir.1991); World Famous Drinking Emporium, Inc. v. Tempe, 820 F.2d 1079, 1081 (9th Cir.1987).

DISCUSSION

I. Subject Matter Jurisdiction

The State first argues that, under the Rooker -Feldman doctrine, the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear this case.

Federal district courts may exercise only original jurisdiction; they may not exercise appellate jurisdiction over state court decisions. District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 482-86, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 1314-17, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983); Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 150, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923) (district courts may not exercise appellate jurisdiction over state courts). This rule arises from the interplay of two jurisdictional statutes: 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331, which grants district courts original jurisdiction over "civil actions arising under" federal law, and 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1257, which grants the Supreme Court the right to review "final judgments ... rendered by the highest court of a State." This rules applies even when the state court judgment is not made by the highest state court, Worldwide Church of God v. McNair, 805 F.2d 888, 893 n. 3 (9th Cir.1986), and when the challenge to the state court's actions involves federal constitutional issues. Feldman, 460 U.S. at 484-86, 103 S.Ct. at 1316-17.

Although a federal district court does not have jurisdiction to review constitutional challenges to a state court's decision, the court does have jurisdiction over a general constitutional challenge that does not require review of a final state court decision in a particular case. Id. at 482-86, 103 S.Ct. at 1314-17; McNair, 805 F.2d at 891. "This distinction between a permissible general constitutional challenge and an impermissible appeal of a state court determination may be subtle, and difficult to make." McNair, 805 F.2d at 891 (citations omitted).

In analyzing whether federal district courts have jurisdiction to hear a particular constitutional challenge, we must determine whether the constitutional claims are "inexplicably intertwined" with the state court's rulings in a particular plaintiff's state case. Feldman, 460 U.S. at 483-84 n. 16, 103 S.Ct. at 1315-16 n. 16 (stating that "[i]f the constitutional claims presented to a United States In Feldman, the Supreme Court reviewed a case in which the District of Columbia Court of Appeals refused to admit Feldman to the District of Columbia bar because he had not graduated from law school, a requirement for admission to the bar. Feldman filed a complaint, arguing that the failure to admit him to the bar deprived him of his constitutional rights. The Supreme Court held that the district court did not have jurisdiction to review Feldman's constitutional challenge to the state court's application of the bar rule denying Feldman admission to the bar. However, the district court did have jurisdiction to determine the general constitutionality of the district's bar rule, because such review would not require reviewing "a final state-court judgment in a particular case." Feldman, 460 U.S. at 486-88, 103 S.Ct. at 1317-18.

                district court are inextricably intertwined with the state court's denial in a judicial proceeding of a particular plaintiff's application for admission to the state bar, then the district court is in essence being called upon to review the state-court decision");  see also McNair, 805 F.2d at 892.   Courts have generally concluded that claims are inextricably intertwined when the district court must scrutinize both the challenged rule and the state court's application of that rule.  See Razatos v. Colorado Supreme Court, 746 F.2d 1429, 1433 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1016, 105 S.Ct. 2019, 85 L.Ed.2d 301 (1985) (district court should not go beyond rule as promulgated to analyze application of rule);  see also Palomar Mobilehome Park Ass'n v. San Marcos, 989 F.2d 362, 365 (9th Cir.1993) (district court does not have jurisdiction over claim that state superior court improperly dismissed challenge to local rent control ordinance);  McNair, 805 F.2d at 892-93 (section 1983 suit alleging unconstitutionality of state court jury verdict finding of defamation is inextricably intertwined with state court's legal determination and jury's verdict)
                

In the present case, appellants' complaint does not require the district court to review a state court decision. In broad language it challenges the general constitutionality of Proposition 115. For example, it alleges that the discovery statutes are not fully reciprocal and that compelled disclosure of information regarding defense witnesses violates the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. ⁵ A district court could easily analyze these claims without resorting to the state trial courts' discovery orders in the appellants' pending cases. See Razatos, 746 F.2d at 1433-34 (district court may determine whether state rules violate due process without reviewing ...