Cyrus Mark Sanai v. Melanie J. Lawrence, et al.

Petitioner Cyrus Sanai presents the following questions:

1. Does the endorsement by the Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals (among others) to raising Younger abstention sua sponte at the District Court or Court of Appeals violate the party presentation principle and is thus improper?

2. Did the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals err when it found that Younger abstention applied without addressing the additional requirement of determining whether the California attorney discipline proceedings fall into one of the NOPSI categories, given that after this Court of Appeals found that California State Bar attorney discipline proceedings meet the Middlesex factors in Hirsh v. Justices of Supreme Ct. of Cal., 67 F.3d 708, 712 (9th Cir. 1995) (per curiam) (citing Middlesex Cnty. Ethics Comm. u. Garden State Bar Ass’n, 457 U.S. 423, 432 (1982)), and so are protected by Younger abstention, the California Supreme Court held that such proceedings are not civil enforcement proceedings nor criminal proceedings, thus avoiding the California Constitution’s requirement that the California Supreme Court hear oral argument on all civil and criminal cases before it? See In re Rose, 22 Cal.4th 430, 440 (2000).