Wade Robertson v. Richard A. Honn, et al.

In 1948 Congress passed the federal judgment registration statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1963, which reads in relevant part as follows: "A judgment so registered shall have the same effect as a judgment of the district court of the district where registered and may be enforced in like manner. ..." The questions presented are as follows: Whether a registration court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1963, has the power to amend or annul the judgment of the rendering court so registered, a question as to which the courts of appeals are in conflict. If so, may a registration court refuse to assert its jurisdiction over the registered judgment when the judgment is challenged in the registration court for being void or a result of a fraud on the rendering court? In Middlesex County Ethics Comm. v. Garden State Bar Assn., 457 U.S. 423 (1982) this court extended the abstention doctrine of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971), to civil enforcement proceedings, but held in relevant part that federal court abstention was only appropriate if the parallel state "proceedings implicate important state interest"; and the state proceedings will provide the federal plaintiff with "an adequate opportunity in the state proceedings to raise [Federal] constitutional challenges." Middlesex, 457 U.S. at 433. The questions presented are as follows: Whether a "facially conclusive" claim of federal preemption precludes finding an "important state interest" in the state proceeding such that Younger abstention is not appropriate, a question as to which the courts of appeals are in conflict. Whether the requirement of "an adequate opportunity in the state proceedings to raise [Federal] constitutional challenges" for purposes of Younger abstention can ever be satisfied where the first and only opportunity to raise federal constitutional challenges to a state court's action is by a single petition for review to that same court even though that state court has adopted a policy of always denying any petitions for review and also of never providing the reasons for any determinations made, or the evidence it relied on, or facts it found, or the reasons supporting the actions it was taking thereof.