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Page Number: 26.0

4 

HEMPHILL v. NEW YORK 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Division recognized that [Morris’] statements would other-
wise be barred by the Confrontation Clause” if he had not 
opened the door.  App. 385. (emphasis added).  In short, eve-
ryone agreed on what the Sixth Amendment required; the
only  dispute  was  whether  the  trial  court  misapplied  New
York’s door-opening doctrine. 

The  Court  declines  to  address  the  substance  of 
Hemphill’s  argument  in  the  Court  of  Appeals.  It  focuses 
instead on Hemphill’s remark, toward the end of his analy-
sis, that the Appellate Division’s ruling “unjustifiably un-
dermine[d]” the right to confrontation and was “absurd in
the context of the Confrontation Clause.”  Id., at 388.  But 
this was not a challenge to the constitutionality of the Reid 
rule; rather, it was an explanation why the Appellate Divi-
sion’s  approach  to  Reid  represented  “a  radical  shift  never
adopted by” the New York Court of Appeals in Reid or its 
progeny.  App.  388.  Hemphill  repeated  that  charge  at
length in his reply brief.  See id., at 404–406.  Notably, he
faulted the trial court for its “basic misunderstanding of the 
Reid doctrine.”  Id., at 406.  Thus, as before, Hemphill chal-
lenged only the misapplication of state law. 

Nonetheless,  even  if  the  Court  were  correct  that 
Hemphill’s  fleeting  reference  to  the  Confrontation  Clause
addressed the constitutionality of the Reid rule, Hemphill 
still  would  not  have  raised  a  “properly  presented”  federal
claim under 28 U. S. C. §1257.  Adams, 520 U. S., at 86.  For 
more than a century, this Court has held that “[a] general 
statement that the decision of a court is against the consti-
tutional rights of the objecting party . . . will not raise a fed-
eral question.”  Clarke v. McDade, 165 U. S. 168, 172 (1897); 
see also Chicago, I. & L. R. Co. v. McGuire, 196 U. S. 128, 
131  (1905)  (“mere  suggestion  of  a  violation  of  a  Federal 
right”—rather than “the distinct presentation of a Federal 
question”—is inadequate).  A litigant must adequately de-
velop any federal claim in his state briefing in order to give