A

MITCHUM v. FOSTER 407 U.S. 225 (1972)

The federal anti-INJUNCTION statute prohibits a federal court from granting an injunction to stay state court proceedings "except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its JURISDICTION, orto protect or effectuate its judgments." In Mitchum, relying on the "basic alteration" in our federal system wrought by the RECONSTRUCTION -era legislation, the Supreme Court decided that SECTION 1983, TITLE 42, UNITED STATES CODE (originally part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871), constituted an exception to the prohibition despite the absence of an express reference in section 1983 to the anti-injunction statute. Recent scholarship, which implicitly supports Mitchum, suggests that the original 1793 version of the anti-injunction statute sought merely to prohibit individual Supreme Court Justices from enjoining state proceedings and was not intended to be a comprehensive ban on federal injunctions against state proceedings. The Court's prior decision in YOUNGER V. HARRIS (1971) limits Mitchum 's practical importance. Younger, which relied on nonstatutory grounds, severely restricted federal courts' discretion to enjoin pending state proceedings.