Fred W. Phelps, Sr. And Edward F. Engel v. Joan Hamilton, in Her Official Capacity as District Attorney

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting that the plaintiff has the burden to assert more than mere allegations of bad faith, harassment, or other extraordinary circumstances to overcome Younger abstention
• noting that a prosecution was not in bad faith where “the parties’ briefs suggest[ed] that the criminal . . . prosecutions were based on probable cause”
• noting that the federal plaintiff ultimately must prove that “the unconstitutional retaliation was the substantial motivating factor behind [the state actor’s] decision to commence” the state proceeding
• stating that courts must assume that the legislature, in amending a statute, was fully aware of the subject matter of the statute, prior and existing legislation, and relevant judicial decisions
• noting that “the cost, anxiety, and inconvenience of defending against a single prosecution brought in good faith is not enough to establish” a threat of irreparable injury “necessary to justify enjoining pending state proceedings”
• collecting cases and distin- guishing between those bad-faith prosecutions that lack “probable cause” and ones brought to “chill[]” the exercise of constitutional rights

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).