On November 5, 2013, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Sprint Communications Company v. Jacobs. The question in this case is whether the doctrine of Younger abstention--which requires that federal courts generally refrain from halting and supplanting state judicial proceedings--applies not only to state proceedings that are “coercive,” such as a state’s enforcement of its criminal laws, but also to state proceedings that are “remedial,” such as a state utility board’s order that Sprint pay certain intrastate access charges.

To discuss the case, we have Paul Salamanca, who is the Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky College of Law. It should be noted that Professor Salamanca, along with a group of other Law Professors who teach and write on issues concerning federal courts, submitted an amicus brief in support of the petitioner.

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