United States Fourth Circuit

Dismissal of federal constitutional challenges to two South Carolina statutes regulating video poker based on abstention under Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315 (1943), is reversed as resolution of these challenges neither requires a court to adjudicate difficult questions of state law, nor disrupts state efforts to establish through a complex regulatory process a coherent policy on a matter of substantial public concern.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/29/2007
• Published 08/29/2007

Judges

• Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:  James Mixon Griffin, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants.  Clyde Havird Jones, Jr., Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General Of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.   ON BRIEF:  Richard A. Harpootlian, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants.  Henry Dargan McMaster, Attorney General, John W. McIntosh, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Robert D. Cook, Assistant Deputy Attorney General, Office Of The Attorney General Of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellees.