Luckey v. Harris

• Decision Date: 23 November 1988
• Docket Number: No. 88-8047,88-8047
• Citation: 860 F.2d 1012
• Parties: Horace LUCKEY, III, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joe Frank HARRIS, Governor, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1012

860 F.2d 1012

57 USLW 2391

Horace LUCKEY, III, et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Joe Frank HARRIS, Governor, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 88-8047.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Nov. 23, 1988.

Neil Bradley, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Inc., David A. Webster, Emory University School of Law, Eric G. Kocher, Kocher, Wilson, Korschun & Cobb, Robert B. Remar, Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiffs-appellants.

Alfred L. Evans, Jr., Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Atlanta, Ga., for defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before VANCE and HATCHETT, Circuit Judges, and SCOTT ^*, District Judge.

VANCE, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal from dismissal of a complaint on two alternate grounds: that the eleventh amendment bars relief against the defendants and that the complaint fails to state a claim for which relief could be granted. Appellants, on behalf of a bilateral class consisting of all indigent persons presently charged or who will be charged in the future with criminal offenses in the courts of Georgia and of all attorneys who represent or will represent indigent defendants in the Georgia courts, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 (1982) against the following defendants in their official capacities: Joe Frank Harris, the Governor of Georgia, the Honorable Robert J. Noland, Chief Judge of the Douglas Judicial Circuit, the Honorable Joe E. Crumbley, Chief Judge of the Clayton Judicial Circuit, and all Georgia judges responsible for providing assistance of counsel to indigents criminally accused in the Georgia courts. Appellants allege that systemic deficiencies including inadequate resources, delays in the appointment of counsel, pressure on attorneys to hurry their clients' case to trial or to enter a guilty plea, and inadequate supervision in the Georgia indigent criminal defense system deny indigent criminal defendants their sixth amendment right to counsel, their due process rights under the fourteenth amendment, their right to bail under the eighth and fourteenth amendments and equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment. Appellants seek an order requiring that appellees meet minimum constitutional standards in the provision of indigent criminal defense services.

On June 24, 1987, the district court granted defendants' motion to dismiss on the grounds that the suit, while nominally against the Governor and state court judges, was in essence a suit against the state of Georgia and therefore was barred by the eleventh amendment. Appellants filed a motion for reconsideration. On December 31, 1987 the court once again granted appellees' motion to dismiss, concluding that even if the eleventh amendment were no bar to appellants' action, the suit failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted. For the reasons stated below, we reverse on both grounds and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

The threshold issue is whether appellants' suit is barred by the eleventh amendment. The eleventh amendment provides:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

U.S. Const. amend. XI. Although this amendment does not expressly prohibit suits in federal court against a state by its own citizens, it has long been interpreted to bar such suits. See Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890).

Both parties agree that this suit involves the scope of the exception to the eleventh amendment first stated in Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908). This case involved a suit against a state attorney general to enjoin him from applying against plaintiffs a state law alleged to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held that a suit against an officer of a state directing him to refrain from unconstitutional conduct is not a suit against a state within the meaning of the eleventh amendment. Id. at 156, 28 S.Ct. at 452. This exception has been developed over the years to permit prospective relief against state officers in their official capacities to refrain from unconstitutional conduct even though compliance may cost the state money. See, e.g., Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. 267, 97 S.Ct. 2749, 53 L.Ed.2d 745 (1977).

The district court held that appellants' suit fell outside the scope of the Young exception. The court relied on two factors to determine that the officials named in this suit were simply surrogates for the state itself: any decree or order would be enforced against the state and the complaint did not allege that "any defendant, as an individual, has personally undertaken any unconstitutional or wrongful action." The court concluded that the state was the real party in interest and the suit was barred by the eleventh amendment. We address each of these factors separately.

A.

Appellees assert this suit is in essence against the state of Georgia because its real goal is to obtain increased funding for indigent services and because the state will ultimately bear the cost of any relief ordered against the named defendants. In their complaint appellants seek an order compelling appellees to meet minimum constitutional standards in the provision of indigent defense services. Specifically, they asked the court to order that appellees provide attorneys at probable cause determinations if so requested by indigent defendants, for speedy appointment of counsel at all critical stages in the criminal process, for adequate investigative services and experts, for the adequate compensation of attorneys representing indigents, and for uniform standards governing the representation of indigents to be adopted and maintained. If this relief were granted, it would doubtless result in expense to the state of Georgia.

Cases defining the scope of the Ex parte Young exception, however, have focused not on the source or amount of funds required to be expended if relief were granted, but on whether the funds are required to be expended as compensation for past wrongdoing by the state or as an "ancillary effect" of compliance with the court order. As the Supreme Court explained in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974),

State officials, in order to shape their official conduct to the mandate of the Court's decrees, would more likely have to spend money from the state treasury than if they had been left free to pursue their previous course of conduct. Such an ancillary effect on the state treasury is a permissible and often an inevitable consequence of the principle announced in Ex parte Young ...

Id. at 668, 94 S.Ct. at 1358. See also Milliken v. Bradley, 433 U.S. at 289, 97 S.Ct. at 2461 (eleventh amendment no bar to court order that state defendants pay one-half costs attributable to education components in school desegregation plan; the Young exception "permits federal courts to enjoin state officials to conform their conduct to requirements of federal law, notwithstanding a direct and substantial impact on the state treasury").

Admittedly, "the difference between the type of relief barred by the Eleventh Amendment and that permitted under Ex parte Young will not in many instances be that between day and night." Edelman 415 U.S. at 667, 94 S.Ct. at 1357. The touchstone, however, is whether an expenditure is a "necessary result of compliance with decrees which by their terms [are] prospective in nature," id. at 668, 94 S.Ct. at 1358, or a goal in itself. Edelman demonstrates this distinction. The Supreme Court reversed an order requiring the retroactive payment of benefits found to be wrongfully withheld by Illinois officials from applicants for state-administered aid to the aged, blind and disabled. On appeal the state "concede[d] that Ex Parte Young ... is no bar to that part of the District Court's judgment that prospectively enjoined petitioner's predecessors from failing to process applications within the time limits established by the federal regulations." Id. at 664, 94 S.Ct. at 1356. The Court concluded, however, that the eleventh amendment did bar the order requiring retroactive payment of benefits because

[i]t requires payment of state funds, not as a necessary consequence of compliance in the future with a substantive federal-question determination, but as a form of compensation to those whose applications were processed on the slower time schedule at a time when petitioner was under no court-imposed obligation to conform to a different standard.

Id. at 668, 94 S.Ct. at 1358.

Likewise, in Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986), the Court held that while the eleventh amendment did not bar an equal protection clause challenge to the unequal distribution of funds from lands set aside to support local schools, it did bar attempts to require state officials to pay to some local school boards yearly income based on amounts that had been generated by lands set aside to fund local education before the lands were sold by state officials. While the Court recognized that these claims could be similar, it noted that the determining factor is the theory of the relief sought.

It may be that the current disparity results directly from the same actions in the past that are the subject of the petitioners' trust claims, but the essence of the equal protection allegation is the present disparity in the distribution of the benefits of state-held assets and not the past actions of the State. A remedy to eliminate this current disparity, even a remedy that might require the expenditure of state funds, would ensure " 'compliance in the future with a substantive federal-question determination' " rather than bestow an award for accrued monetary liability. Milliken [v. Bradley], 433...