Source: https://m.openjurist.org/434/us/59
Timestamp: 2020-07-11 09:00:57
Document Index: 790309955

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1254', '§ 1254', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1254', '§ 1254', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 8', '§ 250', '§ 1254', '§ 1254', '§ 2282', '§ 3731', '§ 3731', '§ 3731', '§ 11', '§ 1363', '§ 1363', '§ 1257', '§ 1257', '§ 2103']

434 US 59 Key v. M Doyle | OpenJurist
434 U.S. 59 - Key v. M Doyle
434 US 59 Key v. M Doyle
98 S.Ct. 280
54 L.Ed.2d 238
John W. KEY et al., Appellants,
Michael M. DOYLE et al.
See 434 U.S. 1025, 54 L.Ed.2d 753.
A law applicable only in the District of Columbia is not a "statute of the United States" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1257(1) which provides for this Court's appellate review of final judgments rendered by a State's highest court in which a decision could be had where the validity of a statute of the United States is at issue and the decision is against its validity. Consequently, a decision by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals holding unconstitutional a provision of the District of Columbia Code is not reviewable by direct appeal to this Court but only by writ of certiorari pursuant to § 1257(3). Pp. 61-68.
Sallye Lipscomb French died 20 days after executing a will leaving most of her estate to certain churches in the District of Columbia. Section 18-302 of the D.C.Code voids religious devises and bequests made within 30 days of death.1 Prevented by this statutory provision from carrying out the terms of the will, the appellee as executor sought instructions in the Probate Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Both that court and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals held the statute unconstitutional.2 The decedent's heirs and next-of-kin brought an appeal to this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(1), which provides for review by appeal in cases "where is drawn in question the validity of a . . . statute of the United States and the decision is against its validity."3 We postponed consideration of the question of our appellate jurisdiction to the hearing of the case on the merits. 430 U.S. 929, 97 S.Ct. 1547, 51 L.Ed.2d 772. Because we conclude that a law applicable only in the District of Columbia is not a "statute of the United States" for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1257(1), we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
Before 1970 the judgments of the trial courts of the District of Columbia were appealable to the United States Court of Appeals.4 Ultimate review in this Court was available under 28 U.S.C. § 1254, which was applicable to all of the 11 Federal Courts of Appeals.5 A right of appeal to this Court from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit thus existed only where that court had invalidated a state statute. All other cases, including those challenging the validity of local statutes of the District of Columbia were reviewable here by writ of certiorari.6
The District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 19707 substantially modified the structure and jurisdiction of the courts in the District, but there is no indication that Congress intended these changes to enlarge the right of appeal to this Court from the courts of that system. The aim of the Act was to establish "a Federal-State court system in the District of Columbia analogous to court systems in the several States." H.R.Rep. No. 91-907, p. 35 (1970). The Act provided that cases would no longer have to proceed from the local courts to the United States Court of Appeals, and then to this Court under § 1254. Instead, the judgments of the newly created local Court of Appeals were made directly reviewable here, like the judgments of state courts.8 Accordingly, § 1257, the jurisdictional provision concerning Supreme Court review of state-court decisions, was amended to include the District of Columbia Court of Appeals as "the highest court of a State."9
" 'The highest court of the District of Columbia is the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. For purposes of appeal to the Supreme Court and other purposes of law, it shall be deemed the highest court of the state.' [Emphasis added.]
"The Chairman. As well as appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 12750 [sic.]? Because the language, you know, leaves out certiorari. Certiorari is an important vehicle to reach the Supreme Court.
"Mr. Kleindienst. We believe the language covers certiorari but it would be easy to clarify."10
The omission is understandable. The question had not arisen before the 1970 reorganization because § 1257 then applied only to state courts, which seldom if ever confronted federal statutes of wholly local application. Although the courts of the District were accustomed to seeing such federal statutes, the jurisdictional provision that applied to them did not mention "statutes of the United States." Rather, § 1254 divides cases from the courts of appeals into two categories—those invalidating state statutes and all others.
Although the precise question at issue in this case thus seems to have escaped the attention of Congress, it was clear that a general right of appeal from the District of Columbia courts to this Court on questions concerning the validity of local law did not exist at the time of the 1970 reorganization.11 In the absence of an express provision so ordaining, it cannot be assumed that Congress intended to enlarge this Court's mandatory appellate jurisdiction by simply shifting review of District of Columbia court judgments from § 1254 to § 1257.12
This Court's mandatory appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments under § 1257 is reserved for cases threatening the supremacy of federal law. When state courts invalidate state statutes on federal grounds, uniformity of national law is not threatened and there is no automatic right of appeal to this Court. From the analogy of the local D.C. courts to state courts drawn by Congress in the 1970 Act, it follows that no right of appeal should lie to this Court when a local court of the District invalidates a law of exclusively local application.13 From such judgments and from similar state-court judgments, there is no appeal to this Court, but only review by writ of certiorari according to the terms of § 1257(3).14
For the reasons expressed in this opinion, the appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.15
In Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973), this Court held that provisions of the District of Columbia Code enacted by the United States Congress were not "state laws" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1257(2) and that a decision of the D.C. Court of Appeals upholding such provisions was reviewable in this Court only on certiorari. Today, this Court holds that an Act of Congress relating exclusively to the District of Columbia is also not a "statute of the United States" within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1257(1). Thus, even where the D.C. Court of Appeals strikes down such a congressional enactment on federal constitutional grounds, there is no right of direct appeal to this Court, review being limited to this Court's discretionary acceptance of a writ of certiorari. Because I believe that this holding is inconsistent with the prior decisions of this Court and contrary to the congressional scheme determining Supreme Court jurisdiction, I dissent from the majority opinion.
* In the early years of the judicial system, all cases from the federally created court in the District of Columbia involving more than a specified jurisdictional amount were appealable to the United States Supreme Court.1 In 1885, the jurisdictional amount was raised to $5,000, but special provision was made for appeal without regard to the sum in dispute in
This view underlies the opinion in Baltimore & Potomac R. Co. v. Hopkins, 130 U.S. 210, 9 S.Ct. 503, 32 L.Ed. 908 (1889), in which an absence of jurisdiction was found for another reason.2 It was made explicit in Parsons v. District of Columbia, 170 U.S. 45, 18 S.Ct. 521, 42 L.Ed. 943 (1898), in which the Court upheld its jurisdiction over a challenge to a congressional scheme for water main assessments in the District of Columbia. "[W]e think it plainly appears," the Court stated, "that the validity of statutes of the United States and of an authority exercised under the United States was drawn into question in the court below . . . ." Id., at 50. Accord, Smoot v. Heyl, 227 U.S. 518, 33 S.Ct. 336, 57 L.Ed. 621 (1913) (upholding Supreme Court jurisdiction over a challenge to the validity of a District of Columbia party-wall regulation).
In Heald v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 20, 41 S.Ct. 42, 65 L.Ed. 106 (1920), the Court squarely held once again that a constitutional attack on a federal statute pertaining exclusively to the District of Columbia drew into question the validity of a "law of the United States" within the meaning of the appeal statute. The Court explicitly rejected the suggestion that American Security & Trust Co. was controlling, since that case itself had recognized a "difference between the two subjects." 254 U.S., at 22, 41 S.Ct., at 43. The Court also noted that the current appeal statute had been intended to "re-enact provisions of prior statutes which had been construed as conveying authority to review controversies concerning the constitutional power of Congress to enact local statutes." Id., at 22-23, 41 S.Ct., at 43, citing Parsons v. District of Columbia, supra, and Smoot v. Heyl, supra. Since the Heald decision, this Court has not commented further on the issue raised therein,3 but commentators have concluded that a "federal statute, for purposes of § 1257(1), plainly means enactments by the Congress of the United States, including those which are limited in operation to the District of Columbia . . . ." R. Stern & E. Gressman, Supreme Court Practice 82 (4th ed. 1969). Accord, Boskey, Appeals from State Courts under the Federal Judicial Code, 30 Va.L.Rev. 57, 59 (1943).4
It was against this background that Congress enacted the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970. 84 Stat. 473. It established a separate court system for the District of Columbia, headed by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Appeals from that court to the United States Supreme Court were to be regulated by 28 U.S.C. § 1257, which was amended to provide:
The clear implication of Congress' action with respect to § 1257 was that statutes relating to the District of Columbia would continue to be viewed, as they had been in the past, as statutes of the United States. Although Congress amended § 1257, characterizing the District of Columbia Court of Appeals as a "state court," it did not also insert a restrictive provision similar to that limiting the jurisdiction of the district courts with respect to D.C.Code provisions. The legislative history gives no indication that Congress disagreed with the prior decisions of this Court holding that a constitutional attack upon a federal law local in operation would be viewed as a challenge to a "statute" or "law of the United States" within the meaning of the applicable appeal statute. In these circumstances, one can only conclude that the Congress intended that decisions invalidating laws concerning the District of Columbia would receive the same scrutiny from this Court as decisions invalidating other federal laws.5
This Court's decision in Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973), supports—if indeed it does not require—that conclusion. The Court there held that provisions of the District of Columbia Code enacted by Congress were not "statutes of a state" within the meaning of § 1257(2) and that D.C. court decisions upholding these laws would be reviewable only on certiorari. The Court reasoned:
Read together with Palmore, the effect of this Court's decision is to put District of Columbia statutes in a unique class: They are neither statutes of a State nor statutes of the United States. Whether the District of Columbia Court of Appeals upholds them or strikes them down, there is no appeal to this Court. If Congress had intended that its enactments relating to the District of Columbia were to be treated as mongrel statutes, distinct from the recognized classifications of the Judicial Code, it would surely have said so.6
Nor do I agree that we should view federal legislation relating to the District of Columbia as not sufficiently national in significance to merit mandatory review. We are not free to disregard § 1257(1). Moreover, the clause giving the Congress power to legislate for the District of Columbia stands beside the other enumerated powers of Congress in Art. I, § 8, of the United States Constitution. " 'The object of the grant of exclusive legislation over the district was . . . national in the highest sense, and the city organized under the grant became the city, not of a state, not of a district, but of a nation.' " O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 539-540, 53 S.Ct. 740, at 746, 77 L.Ed. 1356 (1933), quoting Grether v. Wright, 75 F. 742, 756-757 (C.A. 6 1896) (Taft, J.). Though today the District of Columbia has a measure of home rule, the United States retains important interests in the District of Columbia, ranging from extensive federal property to the welfare of hundreds of thousands of federal employees. That the statute involved in this case is narrow in scope should not be permitted to camouflage the Nation's vital interest in the validity of laws governing its Capital.7
Before 1925, there was a right of appeal to the Supreme Court from the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia (predecessor to the United States Court of Appeals) in cases involving the constitutionality of local statutes, but not in cases involving the construction of local statutes. This rule arose from a somewhat strained construction given the jurisdictional statute of 1911, 36 Stat. 1159, § 250. Paragraph three of that section provided for appeals from the District's courts in "cases involving . . . the constitutionality of any law of the United States . . . ." Paragraph six provided for appeals in "cases in which the construction of any law of the United States is drawn in question by the defendant." The Court construed the same words—"any law of the United States" differently in the two paragraphs.
Or by certification. See 28 U.S.C. § 1254(3), set out in n.5, supra.
Some cases arising in the District reached this Court by routes other than § 1254. In Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969), the Court heard direct appeals from several three-judge District Court decisions, one of them a decision in the District of Columbia holding a D.C.Code provision unconstitutional. After noting that 28 U.S.C. § 2282 (which has since been repealed) required a three-judge court to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of "any Act of Congress," the Court without further discussion concluded that it saw "no reason to make an exception for Acts of Congress pertaining to the District of Columbia." Id., 394 U.S., at 625 n.4, 89 S.Ct., at 1326.
In United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 28 L.Ed.2d 601 (1971), the Court reviewed a District Court judgment holding a criminal provision of the D.C.Code unconstitutional. The United States had taken a direct appeal to the Supreme Court under 18 U.S.C. § 3731 (1964 ed.), which had been recently amended, but which was still applicable to that case. Section 3731 allowed direct appeals "in all criminal cases . . . dismissing any indictment . . . where such decision . . . is based upon the invalidity . . . of the statute upon which the indictment . . . is founded." By a margin of 5-4, the Court held that the word "statute" in § 3731 encompassed D.C.Code provisions. Stressing the nationwide confusion surrounding criminal statutes like the one in question, the Court reasoned that the purpose underlying § 3731 "would not be served by our refusing to decide this case now after it has been orally argued." 402 U.S., at 66, 91 S.Ct., at 1296. Writing for the four dissenters, Mr. Justice Harlan attributed the Court's expansive reading of this jurisdictional provision to the fact that it had been amended and would have no effect upon subsequent cases. Id., at 93, 91 S.Ct., at 1310.
Before 1970, the district courts had jurisdiction over some cases arising under D.C.Code provisions. See n.4, supra. This jurisdiction rested on three jurisdictional provisions of the D.C.Code (§§ 11-521, 11-522, 11-523 (1967) ) and on various jurisdictional provisions found in ch. 85, many of which referred to "statutes of the United States" or "Acts of Congress." The 1970 Act repealed these three jurisdictional provisions of the D.C.Code and also enacted 28 U.S.C. § 1363 as a conforming amendment to assure the removal from the jurisdiction of the District Court for the District of Columbia of those cases arising under D.C.Code provisions. In view of its limited focus, the enactment of § 1363 cannot rationally support the inference that Congress examined other jurisdictional provisions and decided, as to them, that references to "statutes of the United States" should include D.C.Code provisions. Such an inference would be especially tenuous if applied to § 1257, because § 1257 did not previously govern cases questioning the validity of D.C.Code provisions. See supra, at 66. In any event, a clearer indication of congressional intent than this sort of negative implication is required to extend this Court's mandatory appellate jurisdiction.
Treating "the papers whereon the appeal was taken . . . as a petition for writ of certiorari," 28 U.S.C. § 2103, we deny the petition. See n.2, supra.
As the majority recognizes, see ante, at 63-64, n.6, this Court has recently ruled in other contexts that D.C.Code provisions are "statutes of the United States," United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62, 91 S.Ct. 1294, 28 L.Ed. 601 (1971) (criminal appeal statute), and "Acts of Congress," Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969) (three-judge court appeals). While these decisions may not be directly relevant here, they confirm the traditional understanding that—in the absence of contrary congressional command—congressional enactments dealing with the District of Columbia are to be treated like other federal laws.