The Supreme Court Can Review a State Supreme Court Decision

Article III, Section 2, Clause ii:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a Land shall be Party, the supreme Courtroom shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both equally to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

In addition to the constitutional issues presented past § 25 of the Judiciary Human action of 1789 and subsequent enactments,1 (a), which provides that review past writ of certiorari is bachelor where the validity of a treaty or statute of the Us is drawn in question or where the validity of a statute of whatever state is drawn in question on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the The states, or where whatever championship, right, privilege, or immunity is specially fix or claimed under the Constitution or the treaties or statutes of, or any commission held or authority exercised nether, the The states. Prior to 1988, at that place was a correct to mandatory appeal in cases in which a state court had institute invalid a federal statute or treaty or in which a state courtroom had upheld a country statute contested under the Constitution, a treaty, or a statute of the United States. See the Act of June 25, 1948, 62 Stat. 929. The distinction between certiorari and appeal was abolished by the Human activity of June 27, 1988, Pub. 50. No. 100-352, § 3, 102 Stat. 662. questions have continued to arise concerning review of country court judgments which go straight to the nature and extent of the Supreme Court'southward appellate jurisdiction. Considering of the sensitivity of federal-state relations and the delicate nature of the matters presented in litigation touching upon them, jurisdiction to review decisions of a land courtroom is dependent in its exercise not only upon observation of the existence of a federal question simply upon a showing of burnout of state remedies and of the finality of the state judgment. Because the application of these standards to physical facts is neither mechanical nor nondiscretionary, the Justices have ofttimes been divided over whether these requisites to the exercise of jurisdiction have been met in specific cases submitted for review past the Court.

The Court is empowered to review the judgments of "the highest courtroom of a State in which a decision could be had." 2 (a). Run across , Supreme Courtroom Practice ch. 3 (6th ed. 1986). This will commonly be the state's court of last resort, but information technology could well be an intermediate appellate court or even a trial court if its judgment is final nether state law and cannot be f reviewed by any state appellate court.3 The review is of a final judgment below. "It must be subject to no farther review or correction in whatsoever other state tribunal; it must also be last as an effective decision of the litigation and not of merely interlocutory or intermediate steps therein. It must be the final word of a concluding court." 4 The object of this rule is to avoid piecemeal interference with state court proceedings; it promotes harmony by preventing federal assumption of a role in a controversy until the land court efforts are finally resolved.5 For similar reasons, the Court requires that a party seeking to litigate a federal constitutional issue on appeal of a state court judgment must have raised that issue with sufficient precision to have enabled the country court to accept considered it and she must have raised the consequence at the appropriate time below.6

When the judgment of a country court rests on an adequate, contained decision of state law, the Courtroom will non review the resolution of the federal questions decided, fifty-fifty though the resolution may be in error.vii "The reason is so obvious that it has rarely been thought to warrant statement. Information technology is found in the partitioning of power between the state and Federal judicial systems and in the limitations of our own jurisdiction. Our but ability over state judgments is to correct them to the extent that they incorrectly adjudge federal rights. And our ability is to correct wrong judgments, not to revise opinions. We are not permitted to render an advisory opinion, and if the same judgment would be rendered by the land court afterwards nosotros corrected its views of Federal laws, our review could amount to zero more than an advisory opinion." 8 (Scalia, J., concurring)). The Courtroom is faced with two interrelated decisions: whether the land court judgment is based upon a nonfederal basis and whether the nonfederal ground is adequate to support the land court judgment. It is, of course, the responsibleness of the Court to make up one's mind for itself the answer to both questions.9

The kickoff question, whether there is a nonfederal ground, may be raised by several factual situations. A land court may have based its decision on ii grounds, one federal, i nonfederal.x It may have based its determination solely on a nonfederal ground but the federal ground may have been clearly raised.eleven Both federal and nonfederal grounds may have been raised but the state courtroom judgment is cryptic or is without written opinion stating the basis relied on.12 Or the country court may have decided the federal question although information technology could take based its ruling on an acceptable, contained non-federal basis.13 In whatsoever event, it is essential for purposes of review past the Supreme Courtroom that it appear from the record that a federal question was presented, that the disposition of that question was necessary to the determination of the case, that the federal question was actually decided or that the judgment could not have been rendered without deciding it.14

Several factors affect the reply to the second question, whether the nonfederal ground is adequate. In social club to preclude Supreme Court review, the nonfederal ground must be broad enough, without reference to the federal question, to sustain the state courtroom judgment;15 it must be independent of the federal question;16 and it must be tenable.17 Rejection of a litigant'south federal merits past the state court on land procedural grounds, such equally failure to tender the effect at the appropriate fourth dimension, will ordinarily prevent Supreme Court review every bit an acceptable independent state ground,18 then long as the local procedure does not discriminate against the raising of federal claims and has not been used to stifle a federal claim or to evade vindication of federal rights.19 (dissenting stance).

Footnotes

1

On § 25, come across "Judicial Review and National Supremacy," supra. The present statute is 28 UsC. § 1257(a), which provides that review by writ of certiorari is available where the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a statute of any state is drawn in question on the footing of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United states of america, or where any title, right, privilege, or amnesty is specially set or claimed under the Constitution or the treaties or statutes of, or any commission held or authority exercised under, the United States. Prior to 1988, there was a right to mandatory appeal in cases in which a state court had constitute invalid a federal statute or treaty or in which a land court had upheld a country statute contested under the Constitution, a treaty, or a statute of the Usa. See the Deed of June 25, 1948, 62 Stat. 929. The distinction between certiorari and appeal was abolished by the Act of June 27, 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-352, § three, 102 Stat. 662.

2

28 U.South.C. § 1257(a). See R. Stern & E. Gressman, Supreme Courtroom Practise ch. 3 (6th ed. 1986).

3

Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45, 47 (1935); Talley 5. California, 362 U.S. lx, 62 (1960); Thompson v. Metropolis of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199, 202 (1960); Metlakatla Indian Community v. Egan, 363 U.Due south. 555 (1960); Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514, 516, 517 (1968); Koon v. Aiken, 480 U.Due south. 943 (1987) . In Cohens 5. Virginia, 19 U.S. (six Wheat.) 264 (1821), the judgment reviewed was that of the Quarterly Session Court for the Civic of Norfolk, Virginia.

4

Market Street Ry. v. Railroad Comm'northward, 324 U.South. 548, 551 (1945). See also San Diego Gas & Electric Co. v. Urban center of San Diego, 450 U.South. 621 (1981); Flynt five. Ohio, 451 U.Southward. 619 (1981); Minnick v. California Dep't of Corrections, 452 U.South. 105 (1981); Florida 5. Thomas, 532 U.S. 774 (2001). The Court has developed a series of exceptions permitting review when the federal result in the case has been finally determined but there are still proceedings to come in the lower state courts. Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U.Due south. 469, 476–487 (1975). See likewise Fort Wayne Books, Inc. v. Indiana, 489 U.S. 46 (1989); Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U.S. 299, 304 (1989); NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 907 n.42 (1982).

5

Republic Natural Gas Co. v. Oklahoma, 334 U.South. 62, 67–69 (1948); Radio Station WOW five. Johnson, 326 U.S. 120, 123–24 (1945).

6

New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U.S. 63, 67 (1928); See too Bankers Life & Casualty Co. five. Crenshaw, 486 U.South. 71, 77 (1988); Webb v. Webb, 451 U.S. 493, 501 (1981). The same dominion applies on habeas corpus petitions. East.one thousand., Picard v. Connor, 404 U.South. 270 (1972).

7

Murdock v. City of Memphis, 87 U.South. (20 Wall.) 590 (1875); Black v. Cutter Laboratories, 351 U.S. 292 (1956); Wilson v. Loew's, Inc., 355 U.S. 597 (1958).

8

Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U.S. 117, 125–26 (1945). Whereas declining to review judgments of country courts that rest on an acceptable and independent conclusion of land police protects the sovereignty of states, the Court has emphasized that review of state courtroom decisions that invalidate state laws based on interpretations of federal law, "far from undermining land autonomy, is the but way to vindicate information technology" because a correction of a state court's federal errors necessarily returns ability to the land regime. See Kansas v. Carr, 577 U.Southward. ___, No. xiv-449, skid op. at nine (2016)AN (quoting Kansas five. Marsh, 548 U.Southward. 163, 184 (2006) (Scalia, J., concurring)).

9

Due east.m., Howlett five. Rose, 496 U.Southward. 356, 366 (1990); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 455 (1958).

10

Fox Picture Corp. v. Muller, 296 U.Southward. 207 (1935); Cramp v. Board of Public Teaching, 368 U.Due south. 278 (1961).

11

Wood v. Chesborough, 228 U.S. 672, 676–eighty (1913).

12

Lynch 5. New York ex rel. Pierson, 293 U.South. 52, 54–55 (1934); Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U.Southward. 471, 477 (1945); Durley five. Mayo, 351 U.S. 277, 281 (1956); Klinger v. Missouri, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 257, 263 (1872); cf. Section of Mental Hygiene v. Kirchner, 380 U.S. 194 (1965).

thirteen

Poafpybitty five. Skelly Oil Co., 390 U.S. 365, 375–376 (1968).

fourteen

Southwestern Bell Tel. Co. v. Oklahoma, 303 U.South. 206 (1938); Raley v. Ohio, 360 U.South. 423, 434–437 (1959). When there is uncertainty nearly what the state court did, the usual practice was to remand for clarification. Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551 (1940); California 5. Krivda, 409 U.S. 33 (1972). Run into California Dept. of Motor Vehicles 5. Rios, 410 U.S. 425 (1973). At present, still, in a controversial conclusion, the Court has adopted a presumption that when a state courtroom decision fairly appears to rest on federal law or to be interwoven with federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible country law ground is non clear from the confront of the opinion the Court volition accept as the most reasonable explanation that the state courtroom decided the instance as information technology did because it believed that federal law required it to do then. If the land court wishes to avoid the presumption it must brand articulate by a plain statement in its judgment or opinion that discussed federal law did not compel the result, that state police was dispositive. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983). See Harris v. Reed, 489 U.S. 255, 261 n.vii (1989) (collecting cases); Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722 (1991) (applying the dominion in a habeas case).

15

Murdock v. Metropolis of Memphis, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 590, 636 (1875). A new land rule cannot be invented for the occasion in social club to defeat the federal claim. Eastward.g., Ford v. Georgia, 498 U.S. 411, 420–425 (1991).

16

Enterprise Irrigation Dist. v. Farmers' Common Culvert Co., 243 U.Due south. 157, 164 (1917); Ivanhoe Irrigation Dist. v. McCracken, 357 U.S. 275, 290 (1958).

17

Enterprise Irrigation Dist. v. Farmers' Mutual Canal Co., 243 U.S. 157, 164 (1917); Ward v. Love Canton, 253 U.Southward. 17, 22 (1920); Staub v. Urban center of Baxley, 355 U.Southward. 313 (1958).

18

Beard 5. Kindler, 558 U.Due south. ___, No. 08-992, sideslip op. (2009) (firmly established procedural dominion adequate state basis fifty-fifty though rule is discretionary). Accord, Walker v. Martin, 562 ___, No. 09-996, slip op. (2010). See too Nickel five. Cole, 256 U.Due south. 222, 225 (1921); Wolfe v. North Carolina, 364 U.South. 177, 195 (1960). Only see Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U.S. 22 (1923); Brown v. Western Ry. of Alabama, 338 U.S. 294 (1949).

nineteen

Davis five. Wechsler, 263 U.S. 22, 24–25 (1923); NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 455–458 (1958); Barr 5. Urban center of Columbia, 378 U.South. 146, 149 (1964). This rationale probably explains Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U.S. 443 (1965). See also in the criminal area, Edelman v. California, 344 U.Due south. 357, 362 (1953) (dissenting opinion); Brownish five. Allen, 344 U.South. 443, 554 (1953) (dissenting opinion); Williams v. Georgia, 349 U.S. 375, 383 (1955); Monger 5. Florida, 405 U.S. 958 (1972) (dissenting stance).

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Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-2/supreme-court-review-of-state-court-decisions

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