J. W. v. David Knight , 452 F. App'x 411 ( 2011 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 11-1315
J. W.,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
HONORABLE DAVID W. KNIGHT, in his official capacity as
Judge of the Circuit Court of Mercer County for the State
of West Virginia,
Defendant - Appellee,
and
JASON WILSON, a Citizen and Resident of Mercer County, West
Virginia, Real Party in Interest,
Defendant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern
District of West Virginia, at Bluefield. Joseph R. Goodwin,
Chief District Judge. (1:09-cv-01277)
Submitted: October 25, 2011 Decided: November 4, 2011
Before WILKINSON, DUNCAN, and KEENAN, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Wendy J. Murphy, NEW ENGLAND SCHOOL OF LAW, Boston,
Massachusetts; Michael F. Gibson, GIBSON, LEFLER & ASSOCIATES,
Princeton, West Virginia, for Appellant. John M. Hedges, Teresa
J. Lyons, HEDGES LYONS & SHEPHERD, PLLC, Morgantown, West
Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
2
PER CURIAM:
J.W. appeals from the district court’s dismissal of
her 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (2006) civil rights action for lack of
subject-matter jurisdiction. J.W. initiated this action for
declaratory relief in the Southern District of West Virginia,
challenging an order by David W. Knight, a judge in the Circuit
Court for Mercer County, West Virginia (“the state court”),
compelling her to undergo a gynecological examination. During
the pendency of the action, however, J.W. ultimately submitted
to the examination voluntarily. In view of this development,
the district court determined that her claims were moot and
could not be saved from a dismissal on the ground of mootness by
application of the exceptions to the mootness doctrine for
claims capable of repetition, yet evading review, and for
voluntary cessation of illegal activity.
On appeal, J.W. challenges the dismissal of her action
as moot. J.W. also argues that her claims are not barred under
the Younger 1 abstention and Rooker-Feldman 2 doctrines. For the
reasons that follow, we affirm.
1
Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37 (1971).
2
D.C. Ct. App. v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462 (1983); Rooker v.
Fid. Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413 (1923).
3
I.
Jason Wilson was indicted in the state court on
charges of first-degree sexual assault and incest against his
sister, J.W., when she was between nine and eleven years old.
Following his indictment, Jason Wilson moved the state court to
enter an order requiring that J.W. undergo a gynecological
examination to determine whether there existed any evidence that
she had experienced “repeated traumatic [sexual] intercourse.”
Defendant Knight, the presiding state court judge, granted the
motion and ordered that J.W. undergo a gynecological
examination. On J.W.’s behalf, the State of West Virginia filed
a writ of prohibition in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West
Virginia (“SCAWV”), seeking to prevent the state court from
enforcing its order requiring the examination. The SCAWV denied
the writ, State ex rel. J.W. v. Knight, 679 S.E.2d 617, 622
(W. Va. 2009) (per curiam), and the Supreme Court of the United
States denied J.W.’s petition for a writ of certiorari, J.W. v.
Knight, 130 S. Ct. 461 (2009).
Subsequently, J.W. filed the subject § 1983 action
against Knight in the district court, alleging that, in ordering
that she undergo the examination, Knight violated her rights
under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. As relief, J.W.
sought orders declaring that Knight had acted in violation of
the Constitution and that, under the Supremacy Clause, a state
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court judge lacked the authority to order a “minor rape victim
to submit to an unwanted pelvic examination.” Knight moved to
dismiss the action on a host of grounds. While Knight’s motion
was pending, Jason Wilson agreed to plead guilty in the
underlying criminal proceeding. As a result of this agreement,
J.W. was not required to undergo the ordered examination. The
district court thus concluded that J.W.’s § 1983 claims were
moot, granted Knight’s motion, and dismissed the action.
J.W. noted an appeal. While the appeal was pending in
this court, Jason Wilson appeared before Knight for sentencing.
At the sentencing hearing, Knight determined that acceptance of
Jason Wilson’s guilty plea was not in the public’s interest.
Accordingly, Knight scheduled the case against Jason Wilson for
a trial. Based on this development, Knight moved this court for
a remand to the district court. We concluded that the rejection
of Jason Wilson’s guilty plea was a development that bore on the
propriety of the district court’s dismissal of J.W.’s action on
a jurisdictional ground and issued an order granting the motion
to remand, vacating the district court’s judgment, and remanding
for further proceedings.
Following our order of remand, J.W. and Knight
disclosed to the district court that J.W. had indicated her
willingness to undergo the gynecological examination and had
indeed undergone the examination while J.W.’s appeal was pending
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in this court. The results of the examination were submitted to
Knight and placed under seal in the state court proceeding. The
criminal prosecution against Jason Wilson was subsequently
resolved; in January 2011, Knight accepted Jason Wilson’s guilty
plea to child abuse resulting in injury and sentenced him to a
suspended prison sentence and five years of probation. J.W.
argued in the district court that her claims had not been
rendered moot by these developments and, even if they had, they
were still subject to review on their merits because they were
capable of repetition, yet would evade review, and because her
case involved questions of substantial public interest. The
district court concluded that J.W.’s claims were moot as a
result of her having willingly submitted to and undergone the
gynecological examination and that the exceptions to the
mootness doctrine for wrongs capable of repetition, yet evading
review, and voluntary cessation of illegal activity were
inapplicable. Accordingly, the district court dismissed J.W.’s
action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s ruling concerning
subject-matter jurisdiction, including a ruling on mootness.
Simmons v. United Mortg. & Loan Inv., LLC, 634 F.3d 754, 762
(4th Cir. 2011); Covenant Media of S.C., LLC v. City of N.
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Charleston, 493 F.3d 421, 428 (4th Cir. 2007). We also review
for clear error the district court’s findings of fact with
respect to jurisdiction. United States ex rel. Vuyyuru v.
Jadhav, 555 F.3d 337, 348 (4th Cir. 2009).
The Constitution limits the jurisdiction of the
federal courts to the adjudication of actual cases and
controversies. U.S. Const. art. III, § 2; DeFunis v. Odegaard,
416 U.S. 312, 316 (1974) (per curiam). “[A] case is moot when
the issues presented are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a
legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” Powell v.
McCormack, 395 U.S. 486, 496 (1969). The requirement that a
case involve an actual, ongoing controversy extends throughout
the pendency of the action. Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U.S. 395,
401 (1975). To satisfy Article III’s case or controversy
requirement, “a litigant must have suffered some actual injury
that can be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” Iron
Arrow Honor Soc’y v. Heckler, 464 U.S. 67, 70 (1983).
Redressability is present if it is “likely, as opposed to merely
speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable
decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561
(1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). When a case or
controversy ceases to exist, the litigation is moot and a
federal court no longer possesses jurisdiction to proceed.
Heckler, 464 U.S. at 70.
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A case can become moot due either to a change in the
facts or a change in the law. Ross v. Reed, 719 F.2d 689, 693-
94 (4th Cir. 1983). Here, the district court concluded that
J.W.’s claims had become moot due to a change in the facts.
Specifically, the court concluded that, because J.W. voluntarily
submitted to and underwent the gynecological examination, a
favorable judicial decision would not redress her claimed
injuries. On appeal, J.W. does not seriously contest this
conclusion. Rather, she argues that her action, although moot,
may still be reviewed on its merits for two reasons: first,
because her case implicates issues in which the public has an
interest, namely, the due process and Fourth Amendment rights of
minor victims of sex crimes; and second, because the matter is
capable of repetition, yet will evade review. J.W. also asserts
that the district court erred in determining that her action was
not saved from mootness by application of the exception to the
mootness doctrine for voluntary cessation of illegal activity.
A.
J.W. relies primarily on our opinion in Hammond v.
Powell, 462 F.2d 1053 (4th Cir. 1972), as establishing an
exception to the mootness doctrine based on the substantial
public interest in the issues raised by her action. Hammond,
however, does not advance J.W.’s argument. In Hammond, the
plaintiff brought an action, both as an individual and as a
8
representative of a class, seeking both a declaration that South
Carolina’s statute allowing a creditor to seize a defaulting
debtor’s goods in advance of a judgment awarding the goods to
the creditor was unconstitutional and an injunction restraining
future seizures. Hammond, 462 F.2d at 1054. The district court
dismissed the suit, finding that the plaintiff’s individual
claim was moot because the creditor obtained a final judgment
vesting within it the right to possess goods seized from her and
because a class action was not proper. Id. at 1054-55. We
reversed, concluding that the case was not moot because it was
likely that the individual plaintiff would again be subject to
the application of the state statute based on her new purchase
of goods on credit and that the action could be brought as a
class action. Id. at 1055. Although we observed that “the
public interest in having [the] suit considered [was]
substantial,” id. at 1055, nothing in our opinion purports to
recognize this concern as an exception to the mootness doctrine.
Accordingly, this claim is without merit.
B.
Next, J.W. invokes the exception to the mootness
doctrine for matters capable of repetition, yet evading review.
It is well-established that federal courts may consider
“disputes, although moot, that are capable of repetition, yet
evading review.” Incumaa v. Ozmint, 507 F.3d 281, 288-89
9
(4th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Where the
plaintiff has not brought a class action, jurisdiction on the
basis of a dispute that is “capable of repetition, yet evading
review” is limited to “the exceptional situation[] in which (1)
the challenged action is in its duration too short to be fully
litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and (2) there is a
reasonable expectation that the same complaining party will be
subject to the same action again.” Id. at 289 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). J.W. bears the burden of
demonstrating that the exception applies. Id. We conclude she
fails to meet her burden.
J.W.’s claim that orders compelling a victim to submit
to a gynecological examination requested by a criminal defendant
cannot be reviewed because of the short time frame in which a
criminal trial takes place is made in wholly conclusory fashion.
We reject J.W.’s assertion that orders such as the one entered
by Knight cannot be effectively challenged by an alleged victim.
See W. Va. T.C.R. 39.01 & 39.02 (allowing for the appointment of
a guardian ad litem to protect the interests of and pursue
relief on behalf of an alleged victim in a criminal matter). We
also conclude that J.W. fails to show the existence of a
reasonable expectation that she will be subject to the same
order compelling the gynecological examination again. Jason
Wilson entered a guilty plea, and J.W. simply does not
10
articulate why it would ever be necessary for the state court to
order her to submit to another examination.
Additionally, although J.W. maintains that the issues
presented in her lawsuit will recur in West Virginia’s criminal
justice system and continue to affect other victims of sex
crimes, these concerns have no bearing on this case because it
was not brought as a class action. Cf. Gerstein v. Pugh,
420 U.S. 103, 111 n.11 (1975) (recognizing a narrow class of
cases in which the termination of the class representative’s
claim for relief does not moot the claims of the class members).
Further, although J.W. makes note of the possibility that she
could suffer a sexual assault in the future and be subjected to
a similar court order requiring that she undergo an examination
like the one ordered in this case, such conjecture is
insufficient to establish that the exception for cases capable
of repetition, yet evading review, is applicable here. Incumaa,
507 F.3d at 289.
C.
J.W. further challenges as erroneous the district
court’s determination that her case was not saved from mootness
by application of the exception to the doctrine for voluntary
cessation of illegal activity. The district court noted that
the exception to the mootness doctrine for voluntary cessation
of illegal activity is inapplicable where the party seeking
11
judicial redress, and not the opposing party, “saps” the
controversy of its “vitality.” City News & Novelty, Inc. v.
City of Waukesha, 531 U.S. 278, 284 n.1 (2001). By voluntarily
submitting to the gynecological examination that was the subject
of her § 1983 challenge, J.W., the district court concluded,
rendered her action moot by ensuring that no live controversy
remained. Accordingly, the court concluded that the voluntary
cessation exception to the mootness doctrine was inapplicable.
On appeal, J.W. challenges the district court’s
finding that her submission to the gynecological examination was
voluntary. Because it is clear from the record that J.W.
willingly submitted to and underwent the gynecological
examination, we conclude that the district court did not commit
clear error in so finding. J.W. also suggests that dismissal
was not warranted under the voluntary cessation exception
because of the “myriad [of] efforts” by the defense to generate
mootness problems in this litigation but fails to explain what
these efforts were. The district court correctly recognized
that the voluntary cessation exception to the mootness doctrine
is simply not applicable when the party seeking relief saps her
challenge to the ordered examination by voluntarily submitting
to it. We therefore conclude that J.W.’s challenge in this
regard is without merit.
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III.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. 3
We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before the
court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
3
In view of our disposition, we need not address J.W.’s
arguments that her claims are not barred by the Younger
abstention and Rooker-Feldman doctrines.
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