Mesa v. California
| Decision Date | 21 February 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 87-1206,87-1206 |
| Citation | 103 L.Ed.2d 99,109 S.Ct. 959,489 U.S. 121 |
| Parties | Kathryn Isabella MESA and Shabbir A. Ebrahim, a/k/a Shabbir Azam, Petitioners v. CALIFORNIA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Petitioner mailtruck drivers, employees of the United States Postal Service, were separately charged in state criminal complaints with traffic violations arising out of unrelated incidents while they were operating their trucks, and they were arraigned in a California Municipal Court. The United States attorney filed petitions for removal of the complaints to Federal District Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1)—which provides for removal of a civil or criminal prosecution commenced in a state court against "[a]ny officer of the United States . . ., or person acting under him, for any act under color of such office . . ."—because petitioners were federal employees at the time of the incidents and because the charges arose from accidents involving petitioners that occurred while they were on duty and acting in the course and scope of their employment. The District Court granted the petitions. The Court of Appeals, after consolidating the petitions, issued a writ of mandamus ordering the District Court to deny the petitions and remand the prosecutions for trial in state court, holding that "federal postal workers may not remove state criminal prosecutions to federal court when they raise no colorable claim of federal immunity or other federal defense."
Held: Federal officer removal under § 1442(a) must be predicated upon averment of a federal defense. Pp. 124-139.
(a) For almost 125 years, this Court's decisions have understood § 1442(a) and its predecessor statutes to require such an averment. The test for federal officer removal under which "[t]here must be a causal connection between what the officer has done under asserted official authority and the state prosecution," Maryland v. Soper (No. 1), 270 U.S. 9, 33, 46 S.Ct. 185, 70 L.Ed. 449, did not eliminate the federal defense requirement. And since petitioners have not and could not present an official immunity defense to the state prosecutions against them, the liberal pleadings sufficient to allege such a defense that were permitted in Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S. 402, 405, 89 S.Ct. 1813, 1815, 23 L.Ed.2d 396, are inapplicable to removal of those prosecutions. Pp. 125-134.
(b) There is no merit to the Government's argument that the language "in the performance of his duties" used in § 1442(a)(3) that permits removal of actions or prosecutions against a federal court officer "for any act under color of office or in the performance of his duties" must mean something besides "under color of office" in that provision and that therefore § 1442(a)(1) must be construed broadly to permit removal of any actions or prosecutions brought against a federal officer for acts done during the performance of his duties regardless of whether that officer raises a federal defense. There is no reason to depart from the long-standing interpretation that Congress meant by both "in the performance of his duties" and "under color of office" to preserve the pre-existing requirement of a federal defense for removal. Pp. 134-135.
(c) Section 1442(a) is a pure jurisdictional statute, granting district court jurisdiction over cases in which a federal officer is a defendant. The section, therefore, cannot independently support Art. III "arising under" jurisdiction. Rather, it is the raising of a federal question in the officer's removal petition that constitutes the federal law under which the action against the officer arises for Art. III purposes. Adopting the Government's view, which would eliminate the federal defense requirement, would in turn eliminate the substantive Art. III foundation of § 1442(a)(1) and unnecessarily present grave constitutional problems. There is no need to adopt a theory of "protective jurisdiction" to support Art. III "arising under" jurisdiction, as the Government urges, because in this case there are no federal interests that are not protected by limiting removal to situations in which a federal defense is alleged. In the prosecutions at issue, no state court hostility or interference has even been alleged, and there is no federal interest in potentially forcing local district attorneys to choose between prosecuting traffic violations hundreds of miles from the municipality in which the violations occurred or abandoning those prosecutions. It is hardly consistent with the "strong judicial policy" against federal interference with state criminal proceedings to permit removal of state criminal prosecutions of federal officers and thereby impose potentially extraordinary burdens on the States when absolutely no federal question is even at issue in those prosecutions. Pp. 136-139.
813 F.2d 960, affirmed.
Donald B. Ayer, Sacramento, Cal., for petitioners.
Kenneth Rosenblatt, for respondent.
We decide today whether United States Postal Service employees may, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), remove to Federal District Court state criminal prosecutions brought against them for traffic violations committed while on duty.
In the summer of 1985 petitioners Kathryn Mesa and Shabbir Ebrahim were employed as mailtruck drivers by the United States Postal Service in Santa Clara County, California. In unrelated incidents, the State of California issued criminal complaints against petitioners, charging Mesa with misdemeanor-manslaughter and driving outside a laned roadway after her mailtruck collided with and killed a bicyclist, and charging Ebrahim with speeding and failure to yield after his mailtruck collided with a police car. Mesa and Ebrahim were arraigned in the San Jose Municipal Court of Santa Clara County on September 16 and October 2, 1985, respectively. The Municipal Court set a pretrial conference in Mesa's case for November 4, 1985, and set trial for Ebrahim on November 7, 1985.
On September 24 and October 4, 1985, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California filed petitions in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for removal to that court of the criminal complaints brought against Ebrahim and Mesa. The petitions alleged that the complaints should properly be removed to the Federal District Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) because Mesa and Ebrahim were federal employees at the time of the incidents and because "the state charges arose from an accident involving defendant which occurred while defendant was on duty and acting in the course and scope of her employment with the Postal Service." Mesa Petition for Removal of Criminal Action ¶ 3, App. 5. See also Ebrahim Petition for Removal of Criminal Action ¶ 3, App. 10 (). The Santa Clara County District Attorney filed responsive motions to remand, contending that the State's actions against Mesa and Ebrahim were not removable under § 1442(a)(1). The District Court granted the United States Government's petitions for removal and denied California's motions for remand.
California thereupon petitioned the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to issue a writ of mandamus compelling the District Court to remand the cases to the state court. The Court of Appeals consolidated the petitions, and a divided panel held that "federal postal workers may not remove state criminal prosecutions to federal court when they raise no colorable claim of federal immunity or other federal defense." 813 F.2d 960, 967 (1987). Accordingly, the Court of Appeals issued a writ of mandamus ordering the District Court to deny the United States' petitions for removal and remand the prosecutions for trial in the California state courts. We granted the United States' petition for certiorari on behalf of Mesa and Ebrahim, 486 U.S. 1021, 108 S.Ct. 1993, 100 L.Ed.2d 226 (1988), to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the proper interpretation of § 1442(a)(1). We now affirm.
The removal provision at issue in this case, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a), provides:
The United States and California agree that Mesa and Ebrahim, in their capacity as employees of the United States Postal Service, were "person[s] acting under" an "officer of the United States or any agency thereof" within the meaning of § 1442(a)(1). Their disagreement concerns whether the California criminal prosecutions brought against Mesa and Ebrahim were "for act[s] under color of such office" within the meaning of that subsection. The United States, largely adopting the view taken by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Pennsylvania v. Newcomer, 618 F.2d 246 (1980), would read "under color of office" to permit removal "whenever a...
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