Hale v. Committee, Character & Fitness, Ill.
| Decision Date | 14 July 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-1716.,02-1716. |
| Citation | 335 F.3d 678 |
| Parties | Matthew F. HALE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COMMITTEE ON CHARACTER AND FITNESS FOR THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Glenn Greenwald (argued), Greenwald Christoph, New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Marc W. Martin (argued), Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.
Mary E. Welsh (argued), Office of the Attorney General, Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellee.
Before FLAUM, Chief Judge, and BAUER and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.
Matthew Hale is a public advocate of white supremacy and the leader of an organization (formerly called the World Church of the Creator1) dedicated to racism and anti-Semitism. He comes before us today because he seeks to be admitted to practice law in the state of Illinois. The Illinois State Bar requires applicants not only to demonstrate proficiency in the law on a written bar examination, but also to pass a character and fitness exam. Hale succeeded in satisfying the first of these hurdles, but not the second. His defeat came at the hands of the Committee on Character and Fitness (Committee) appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court, which found him unfit to practice law. Hale challenged that determination both before the Illinois Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court of the United States, claiming among other things that the Committee had violated his First Amendment rights by acting solely on the basis of his viewpoints. Unsuccessful in that effort, he then turned to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois with a fresh lawsuit again raising his First Amendment claim, among other constitutional challenges. This time he lost because the district court concluded, in part, that the Rooker-Feldman doctrine did not permit it to review the earlier decision of the Illinois Supreme Court. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 415-16, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923); District of Columbia Ct. of App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 486, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983). Bearing in mind the unique procedures that the Illinois Supreme Court uses for bar admission decisions (as opposed to its review of litigated cases), we find that Hale has had his day in the state courts, and that the district court correctly dismissed his suit.
Hale's avowed mission in life is to bring about the hegemony of the white race, the legal abolition of equal protection, and the deportation of non-white Americans by non-violent means. With these goals in mind, Hale attended Southern Illinois University School of Law, graduating with a J.D. and passing the Illinois bar exam in 1998. In his application for admission to the Illinois State Bar, Hale disclosed his active role in promoting racism and anti-Semitism.
Hale's application was referred to a single member of the Committee on Character and Fitness of the Third Judicial District of the State of Illinois (Third District Committee), pursuant to Rule 5.1(a) of the Rules of Procedure of the Board of Admissions and the Committee on Character and Fitness (the Rules of Procedure). This member advised the Board that he was not prepared to recommend that Hale be admitted to practice law in Illinois.
In accordance with Rule 5.2(a) of the Rules of Procedure, the Chairperson of the Third District Committee assigned Hale's application to a three-person "Inquiry Panel" for further review. On December 18, 1998, in a 2-1 written decision, the Inquiry Panel recommended that the Committee refuse to approve Hale's admission to practice law in Illinois. The Committee rejected the argument that Hale was merely an applicant with distasteful views that were nonetheless protected under the First Amendment. Instead, it said, Hale's active commitment to bigotry under "any civilized standards of decency" demonstrated a "gross deficiency in moral character, particularly for lawyers who have a special responsibility to uphold the rule of law for all persons." In short, the Committee believed that Hale was likely to commit acts of various kinds in the future that were inconsistent with membership in the bar.
The Inquiry Panel's recommendation that Hale not be certified resulted in the automatic creation by the Committee of a five-member "Hearing Panel" to determine with finality whether Hale should be certified for admission to practice law. The Panel held a hearing on April 10, 1999, at which multiple witnesses testified that Hale possessed the requisite character and fitness to practice law. Hale himself testified before the Panel, and asserted that he was prepared to comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct. He also indicated, however, that he believed that the Rules applied only while he worked as an attorney, and not while he practiced his religion.
On June 30, 1999, the Hearing Panel denied Hale's application. It began by drawing a distinction between Hale's First Amendment right to express ideas and his right to become a member of the Illinois bar, commenting that the case was The Hearing Panel based its decision that Hale had not satisfied his burden of proving that he possessed the requisite character and fitness on several findings. First, the Hearing Panel believed that Hale's outspoken intent to continue discriminating in his private life, especially taken together with negative character evidence such as academic probation, an order of protection, and a list of arrests (not convictions), was inconsistent with the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Hearing Panel was also concerned about Hale's refusal to repudiate a 1995 letter he wrote in response to published commentary in support of affirmative action, in which Hale referred to the female author's "rape at the hands of a nigger beast." The letter, the Hearing Panel found, was insulting, inappropriate, and showed a "monumental lack of sound judgment" that would put Hale "on a collision course with the Rules of Professional Conduct." Finally, the Hearing Panel concluded that Hale was not candid and open with it during the hearing.
Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 708, Hale petitioned the Illinois Supreme Court to reconsider the Committee's denial. Hale asked the Illinois Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the Committee's decision, in addition to challenging the constitutionality of the disciplinary rule against discrimination (Rule 8.4(a)(5) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct). Hale's complaint squarely raised the claim that the Committee had violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments when it arbitrarily denied his bar application, because it based its decision not on any conduct in which Hale may have engaged, but instead solely on its speculation about his likely future conduct and its distaste for his political and religious beliefs. The Committee filed a response in opposition to Hale's petition for review, as it was required to do under Rule 708. It asked the Illinois Supreme Court to sustain its decision and to deny certification of Hale's bar application. On November 12, 1999, the Illinois Supreme Court denied Hale's petition for review — an action that had the effect of leaving the Committee's decision in place. Justice Heiple dissented from the court's refusal to conduct plenary proceedings in the case.
Hale then filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States, in which he presented his constitutional challenges to the Illinois Supreme Court's decision. The Supreme Court of the United States denied his petition without comment. Hale v. Committee on Character and Fitness, 530 U.S. 1261, 120 S.Ct. 2716, 147 L.Ed.2d 982 (2000).
Frustrated with what he perceived to be a total lack of access to a judicial body that would give him a full hearing on his First Amendment claims, Hale then turned to the district court and filed the present case. His complaint named as defendants the Committee, the Board of Admissions to the Bar (Board), the Third District Committee, members of the Hearing Panel in their individual capacity, and the Illinois Supreme Court.
Counts I to IV of the complaint assert various claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including "as-applied" violations of his First Amendment rights of freedom of expression and association and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. Counts V and VI seek a declaration that Rule 8.4(a)(5) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct is facially unconstitutional as a violation of the First Amendment right of freedom of association and freedom of expression. Count VII seeks a declaration that Illinois Supreme Court Rule 708 and Rule 4 of the Committee's Rules of Procedure violate the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to provide bar applicants with a forum in which their constitutional challenges to the Committee's actions can be adjudicated. For each of the seven counts, Hale seeks declaratory and injunctive relief. The district court dismissed the entire lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and on grounds of res judicata. This appeal followed.
The central question we must decide is a procedural one: did the proceedings that culminated in the Illinois Supreme Court's decision to allow the Committee's rejection of Hale's application to stand qualify as "judicial proceedings," such that the doctrine that forbids lower federal courts to sit in review of state court decisions or the preclusion doctrines should apply? If the answer to that is yes, we are finished, because the Supreme Court of the United States has had an opportunity to consider whether the Illinois court's decision violated federal law, and it chose not to hear the case. If the answer to that question is no,...
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