Michael Williams v. Audrey King

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
AUG 18 2017
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
MICHAEL B. WILLIAMS, No. 15-17499
Petitioner-Appellant, D.C. No. 4:14-cv-01831-PJH
v.
MEMORANDUM*
AUDREY KING, Executive Director,
Coalinga State Hospital,
Respondent-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Phyllis J. Hamilton, Chief Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted August 14, 2017
San Francisco, California
Before: RAWLINSON and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and WATTERS,**
District Judge.
Michael Williams appeals the denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2241 habeas petition.
We affirm the denial of the petition under Younger abstention. See Younger v.
Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971).
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The Honorable Susan P. Watters, United States District Judge for the
District of Montana, sitting by designation.
Under Younger abstention, a federal court must abstain from ruling in a case
if four requirements are met:
(1) a state-initiated proceeding is ongoing; (2) the proceeding implicates
important state interests; (3) the federal plaintiff is not barred from
litigating federal constitutional issues in the state proceeding; and (4) the
federal court action would enjoin the proceeding or have the practical
effect of doing so.
San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Comm. v. City of
San Jose, 546 F.3d 1087, 1092 (9th Cir. 2008). Williams only challenges whether
the first of these four elements has been satisfied.
The first element is satisfied, because the underlying state case is an
ongoing, state-initiated proceeding. The San Francisco District Attorney’s office
filed a petition to commit Williams under California’s Sexually Violent Predator
Act (“SVPA”). The state court immediately held a probable cause hearing and,
since then, has continued to hold hearings and rule on the motions filed by the
parties in the case. “[N]o final judgment has been entered, [so] the proceeding is
plainly ongoing.” Id. at 1093. Moreover, there is no statutory deadline by which
the state case must be completed. Thus, although many years have passed since
the SVPA petition was first filed, the case is still ongoing for the purposes of
Younger abstention.
2
Williams also argues that this case is one of the exceptions to the general
rule requiring abstention due to the extraordinary circumstances he faces. 546 F.3d
at 1092 (“An exception to that general rule exists if there is a ‘showing of bad
faith, harassment, or some other extraordinary circumstance that would make
abstention inappropriate.’” (citation omitted)). Williams fails to cite any authority
to support his contention that the delay in holding his civil commitment trial
constitutes extraordinary circumstances for the purposes of Younger abstention.1
Moreover, Williams has contributed substantially to his own circumstances as he
has continued to ask for trial continuances, new counsel, and new probable cause
hearings in his state case. Not only has he requested these delays, but he has failed
to prompt the state court to hold his civil commitment trial. It would violate the
principles behind Younger abstention to grant Williams’s requested relief—release
from state custody, without ever having a civil commitment trial—after he created
the alleged “extraordinary circumstances” he now faces.
AFFIRMED.
1
Williams cites cases in which the Supreme Court has described long
delays in prosecuting criminal defendants as “extraordinary.” These cases are not
relevant as (1) Younger abstention was not at issue in any of them and (2) they
implicated the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy criminal trial, which is not at
issue here.
3