Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 87

6 

ESPINOZA v. MONTANA DEPT. OF REVENUE 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

resolve only “real and substantial controvers[ies] admitting
of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character,
as  distinguished  from  an  opinion  advising  what  the  law 
would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.”  Lewis v. Con-
tinental Bank Corp., 494 U. S. 472, 477 (1990) (alteration in 
original;  internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    Consonant 
with that limitation, the Court has declined to “ ‘ “formulate 
a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the 
precise  facts  to  which  it  is  to  be  applied.” ’ ”  Washington 
State  Grange  v.  Washington  State  Republican  Party,  552 
U. S. 442, 450 (2008) (quoting Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 
288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring)).  By answering 
an apparent hypothetical question, today’s Court subverts 
these longstanding practices. 

True, on occasion this Court has resolved federal consti-
tutional questions when it was unclear whether the state-
court  judgment  rested  on  an  adequate  and  independent 
state-law  ground.  See,  e.g.,  Michigan  v.  Long,  463  U. S. 
1032, 1043 (1983).  But that is not this case.  Recall that the 
Montana Supreme Court remedied a state constitutional vi-
olation  by  invalidating  a  state  program  on  state-law 
grounds, having expressly declined to reach any federal is-
sue.  See 393 Mont., at 467–468, 435 P. 3d, at 614; see also 
ante, at 4–5 (GINSBURG, J., dissenting). 

These principles exist to prevent this Court from issuing
advisory  opinions,  sowing  confusion,  and  muddying  the 
law.  This is case in point.  Having held that petitioners may
not  be  “exclu[ded]  from  the  scholarship  program”  that  no 
longer exists, the Court remands to the Montana Supreme
Court  for  “further  proceedings  not  inconsistent  with  this
opinion.”  Ante, at 22.  But it is hard to tell what this Court 
wishes  the  state  court  to  do.    There  is  no  program  from
which  petitioners  are  currently  “exclu[ded],”  so  must  the 
Montana  Supreme  Court  order  the  State  to  recreate  one?
Has  this  Court  just  announced  its  authority  to  require  a