I. ARGUMENT
The Notice of Entry of Judgment issued by this Court with its Memorandum decision states that a Petition for Rehearing should only be made for one of three purposes, one of which is "A material point of fact or law overlooked in the decision."
Appellant respectfully requests that this Court rehear this appeal in light of Gibson v. Berryhill, (1973) 411 U.S. 564, 36 L. Ed. 2d. 488, 93 S. Ct. 1689 and part C. Decision on Younger Abstention Requires Decision on Whether Antipeonage Act Applies to Child Support of appellant’s Argument presented in his Brief of Appellant pp. 20-24.
Gibson found that because a state optometry board was made up of members who each had a personal interest in the outcome of the case before it, it was not competent to adjudicate the case. Therefore Younger v. Harris, (1971) 401 U.S. 37, 27 L. Ed. 2d. 669, 91 S. Ct. 746 does not require abstention. Justice White wrote, at 411 U.S. 577:
Unlike those situations where a federal court merely abstains from decision on federal questions until the resolution of underlying or related state law issues - a subject we shall consider shortly in the context of the present case - Younger v. Harris contemplates the outright dismissal of the federal suit, and the presentation of all claims, both state and federal, to the state courts. Such a course naturally presupposes the opportunity to raise and have timely decided by a competent state tribunal the federal issues involved. Here the predicate for a Younger v. Harris dismissal was lacking, for the appellees alleged, and the District Court concluded, that the State Board of Optometry was incompetent by reason of bias to adjudicate the issues pending before it. If the District Court's conclusion was correct in this regard, it was also correct that it need not defer to the Board.
Here is a Supreme Court decision finding that Younger abstention not only requires that adequate remedy at law must exist in the state courts in theory, it must also exist in fact, in the competency of judges or other adjudicators by reason of a lack of bias.
The problem for the appellant in presenting his argument that state court contempt proceedings that have the purpose of coercing employment to allow compliance with the state court child support order, such purpose never denied by the appellees, violates the Antipeonage Act, is that any violation of the civil right defined by 42 U.S.C. §1994 is arguably the crime defined by 18 U.S.C. §1581. The same problem exists when he makes the argument that such proceedings violate the Thirteenth Amendment. Any conceivable violation of the Thirteenth Amendment can fit within the criminal statutes of the Peonage and Slavery Chapter, 18 U.S.C. §§1581-1588, specifically §1581 and §1584.
Because of the widespread use of contempt proceedings in the courts of the State of Washington to coerce the employment of support obligors, the judges of these courts have a substantial personal interest in the criminal liability they would expose themselves to should they find that Mr. Knight is right in his claim. Therefore they are not competent to adjudicate the claim and Mr. Knight lacks adequate remedy at law in the state courts. Please see Brief of Appellant pages 21-23 and the Excerpts of Record pages cited therein.
II. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, this Petition for Rehearing should be granted.
Respectfully submitted this 31st day of January, 2001.
_______________________________
Roger W. Knight, Appellant
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