Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-9526_9okb.pdf
Page Number: 85

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

3 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Oklahoma  Court  of  Criminal  Appeals  briefly  recited  the
procedural  history  of  Murphy  and  recognized  that  the 
Tenth Circuit’s decision—which we granted certiorari to re-
view—is not yet final.  But contrary to the Court’s assertion
that brief discussion of federal case law did not come close 
to  “address[ing]  the  merits  of  [petitioner’s]  federal  [Major 
Crimes Act] claim.”  Ante, at 38, n. 15.  The state court did 
not analyze the relevant statutory text or this Court’s deci-
sions  in  Solem  v.  Bartlett,  465  U. S.  463  (1984),  and  Ne-
braska  v.  Parker,  577  U. S.  481  (2016).    It  reads  far  too 
much into the opinion to claim that the court’s brief refer-
ence to the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Murphy transformed 
the state court’s decision into one that “fairly appear[s] to
rest primarily on federal law or to be interwoven with fed-
eral law,” Long, supra, at 1040–1041; see also ante, at 38, 
n. 15.  Nothing in the court’s opinion suggests that its judg-
ment was at all based on federal law.  Thus, even if we were 
to  set  aside  the  fact  that  the  state  court  “clearly  and  ex-
pressly state[d] that [its decision] was based on state proce-
dural  grounds,”  we  could  not  presume  jurisdiction  here. 
Coleman,  supra,  at  735–736  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).

The  Court  might  think  that,  in  the  grand  scheme  of 
things, this jurisdictional defect is fairly insignificant.  Af-
ter  all,  we  were  bound  to  resolve  this  federal  question 
sooner or later.  See Royal v. Murphy, 584 U. S. ___ (2018). 
But our desire to decisively “settle [important disputes] for 
the  sake  of  convenience  and  efficiency”  must  yield  to  the 
“overriding  and  time-honored  concern  about  keeping  the 
Judiciary’s power within its proper constitutional sphere.” 
Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U. S. 693, 704–705 (2013) (in-
ternal  quotation  marks  omitted).  Because  the  Oklahoma 
court’s “judgment does not depend upon the decision of any 
federal question[,] we have no power to disturb it.”  Enter-
prise Irrigation Dist. v. Farmers Mut. Canal Co., 243 U. S. 
157, 164 (1917).