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DARR V. BURFORD, 339 U. S. 200 - Volume 339 - 1950 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 339 > DARR V. BURFORD, 339 U. S. 200 (1950) > Full Text
DARR V. BURFORD, 339 U. S. 200 (1950)
Held: the District Court properly refused to examine further into the merits of the petition and properly discharged the writ. Pp. 339 U. S. 201-219.
(a) Ordinarily an application for habeas corpus by one detained under a state court judgment of conviction for crime will be entertained by a federal district court only after all state remedies available, including all appellate remedies in the state courts, have been exhausted and review has been denied by this Court. Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114. Pp. 339 U. S. 203-208.
(b) Whatever deviation from the established rule may be inferred from or implied by Wade v. Mayo, 334 U. S. 672, is corrected by this decision. Pp. 339 U. S. 208-210.
(c) In § 2254 of the 1948 recodification of the Judicial Code, Congress accepted the rule of the Hawk case as a sound rule to guide consideration of habeas corpus in federal courts. Pp. 339 U. S. 210-214.
(d) Though a refusal of certiorari by this Court may carry no weight on the merits upon a later application to a federal district court for habeas corpus, comity ordinarily requires an application for review by this Court before a lower federal court may be asked to intervene in state matters. Pp. 339 U. S. 214-217.
(e) In this case, petitioner did not sustain the burden of showing that circumstances of peculiar urgency existed to require prompt federal intervention. P. 339 U. S. 219.
Petitioner's application for habeas corpus, to secure his release from imprisonment under a state court conviction allegedly in violation of the Federal Constitution, was denied by the District Court. 77 F.Supp. 553. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 172 F.2d 668. This Court granted certiorari. 337 U.S. 923. Affirmed, p. 339 U. S. 219.
No appeal from the conviction was taken, but, in 1947, petitioner applied to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals for habeas corpus. Judging only from the state court's opinion, [Footnote 1] for the original petition is not included in the record before us, petitioner alleged in the state court that he had been without funds to employ counsel, that he had not had the aid of counsel of his own choosing, and had not been provided sufficient time to procure and prepare witnesses for his defense. These allegations were reviewed by the state court and the writ was denied on the merits. No application for certiorari was made here.
Petitioner then filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma the application for habeas corpus here at bar. The allegations were those passed upon by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, with the addition of a claim that petitioner's plea of guilty to the second armed robbery charge had been coerced. After hearing petitioner's testimony in open court, the District Judge examined into the merits sufficiently to assure himself that no extraordinary circumstances existed sufficient to justify federal inquiry into the merits of petitioner's allegations without the exhaustion of all other available remedies. [Footnote 2] He then concluded that the writ must be discharged as to the first sentence, since petitioner had not applied for certiorari here from the state court's denial of habeas corpus. The allegations of a coerced plea underlying the second sentence could not properly be considered, held the court, first, because petitioner had not raised the point in the state proceeding, and further because petitioner is not presently being detained under that sentence. Therefore no adjudication on the merits was given. [Footnote 3] The Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit affirmed, one judge dissenting from the proposition that application for certiorari is a requisite step in the exhaustion of remedy. [Footnote 4]
It is not argued that the courts below state the law incorrectly insofar as the second conviction is concerned. It has long been settled that the federal courts will not consider on habeas corpus claims which have not been raised in the state tribunal, [Footnote 5] and, in any event, it is unquestioned doctrine that only the sentence being served is subject to habeas corpus attack. [Footnote 6] Further, since neither court based its conclusion upon petitioner's failure to appeal from his initial conviction, that issue is not before us. There is no problem of jurisdiction or power in the federal courts to consider applications for habeas corpus. Nor is there at issue the effect of a refusal of certiorari by this Court upon future applications for federal habeas corpus by the state prisoner. The issue of exhaustion of remedy, however, is not only of vital concern to those who would seek the protection of the Great Writ, but, in the case of state prisoners, is crucial to the relationship between the state and federal sovereignties in the exercise of their coordinate power over habeas corpus. Doubt respecting this issue should not go unresolved. We therefore granted certiorari. 337 U.S. 923.
The writ of habeas corpus commands general recognition a the essential remedy to safeguard a citizen against imprisonment by State or Nation in violation of his constitutional rights. [Footnote 7] To make this protection effective for unlettered prisoners without friends or funds, federal courts have long disregarded legalistic requirements in examining applications for the writ and judged the papers
by the simple statutory test of whether facts are alleged that entitle the applicant to relief. [Footnote 8]
This favorable attitude toward procedural difficulties accords with the salutary purpose of Congress in extending in 1867 the scope of federal habeas corpus beyond an examination of the commitment papers under which a prisoner was held to the "very truth and substance of the causes of his detention." [Footnote 9] Through this extension of the boundaries of federal habeas corpus, persons restrained in violation of constitutional rights may regain their freedom. But, since the 1867 statute granted jurisdiction to federal courts to examine into alleged unconstitutional restraint of prisoners by state power, it created an area of potential conflict between state and federal courts. As it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation, the federal courts sought a means to avoid such collisions. Solution was found in the doctrine of comity between courts, a doctrine which teaches that one court should defer action on causes properly within its jurisdiction until the courts of another sovereignty with concurrent powers, and already cognizant of the litigation, have had an opportunity to pass upon the matter. [Footnote 10]
comity, the doctrine of exhaustion of state remedies has developed steadily from cases refusing federal habeas corpus before state trial to a statutory direction that federal courts shall not grant the writ to a state prisoner until state remedies have been exhausted. Ex parte Royall, [Footnote 11] decided in 1886, held that a federal district court had jurisdiction to release before trial a state prisoner who was held in violation of federal constitutional rights, but it approved denial of the writ as a matter of discretion. It was not to be presumed that
"the decision of the state court would be otherwise than is required by the fundamental law of the land, or that it would disregard the settled principles of constitutional law announced by this court. . . . [Footnote 12]"
Analogy was found in earlier cases where state and federal jurisdiction to attach property had been found to overlap. Apropos were the words of the Court in Covell v. Heyman: [Footnote 13]
In the same term of court, the doctrine was advanced to its next stage, for in Ex parte Fonda, [Footnote 14] the prisoner sought his federal relief in this Court after his state conviction, but before he had prosecuted his appeal to the state appellate tribunal. Stressing the importance of noninterference
with the orderly processes of appellate review, this Court denied to writ, for if the trial court had erred to the prejudice of petitioner's constitutional rights, it could not be assumed that the state appellate court would suffer the error to go uncorrected. [Footnote 15]
The established doctrine was applied to meet the variations presented by the cases. By 1891, it was clear that a federal circuit court committed no error in refusing a writ on the ground that the petitioner had not come to this Court on writ of error, [Footnote 16] and a great body of cases affirmed this holding that the petitioner should be "put to his writ of error." [Footnote 17] Baker v. Grice [Footnote 18] states the reason for the rule that, after a final determination of the case by the state court, the federal courts will even then generally leave the petitioner to his remedy by writ of error from this Court.
And to this the Court added, in Markuson v. Boucher, [Footnote 19] the explicit reason why the exhaustion principle must
In 1913, a petitioner was denied an original writ here even though he had appealed and had applied for state habeas corpus, with the comment that writ of error to this Court was required. [Footnote 20] And following next upon the heels of an adjudication that a state habeas corpus action is a "suit" yielding a final reviewable judgment [Footnote 21] came the leading case of Mooney v. Holohan, [Footnote 22] clearly establishing the rule that available collateral attacks in the state tribunals must be exhausted in addition to direct attacks on the conviction. [Footnote 23] In 1944, the unanimous per curiam opinion of Ex parte Hawk stated the fully developed and established exhaustion doctrine in its most frequently quoted form. [Footnote 24]
The doctrine of Ex parte Hawk has been repeatedly approved, [Footnote 25] and in White v. Ragen, the same Court again unanimously restated that principle in the clearest language. [Footnote 26]
In Wade v. Mayo alone, [Footnote 27] a case decided less than four years later, does there appear language that may be construed as a departure from the established rule. The District Court was allowed to hear Wade's petition for habeas corpus, even though he had not applied here for certiorari, because there was grave doubt whether the state judgment constituted an adjudication of a federal question. The Court said, at p. 334 U. S. 682:
"decision is based upon some other adequate nonfederal ground, it is unnecessary for the petitioner to ask this Court for certiorari in order to exhaust his state remedies, since we would lack jurisdiction to review the decision of the state court. [Footnote 28]"
Not limiting its discussion to the holding on the Hawk exception, however, Wade also treated with the general Hawk rule of the necessity for review here before seeking the writ in the federal district court. The thought behind the language on that point evidently was that review here is not usually required as a condition to a hearing on the merits in the district court. Wade did recognize that failure to come here might be relevant in determining whether a district court should entertain an application. On p. 334 U. S. 680, it is said:
Ex parte Hawk prescribes only what should "ordinarily" be the proper procedure; all the cited cases from Ex parte Royall to Hawk recognize that much cannot be foreseen, and that "special circumstances" justify departure from rules designed to regulate the usual case. The exceptions are few, but they exist. [Footnote 29] Other situations may develop. Compare Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86. Congress has now made statutory allowance for exceptions such as these, leaving federal courts free to grant habeas corpus when the exist "circumstances rendering such [state] process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner." 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
In § 2254 of the 1948 recodification of the Judicial Code, Congress gave legislative recognition to the Hawk rule for the exhaustion of remedies in the state courts and this Court. [Footnote 30] This was done by embodying in the new statute
the rulings drawn from the precedents. [Footnote 31] The rulings had been definitively restated in Hawk. That case had represented an effort by this Court to clear the way for prompt and orderly consideration of habeas corpus petitions from state prisoners. This Court had caused the Hawk opinion to be distributed to persons seeking federal habeas corpus relief from state restraint and the opinion had been generally cited and followed. [Footnote 32] There is no doubt that Congress thought that the desirable rule drawn from the existing precedents was stated by Hawk, for the statutory reviser's notes inform us that
"This new section is declaratory of existing law as affirmed by the Supreme Court. See Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114 (1944). [Footnote 33]"
for the draftsmen of § 2254 to make reference to review in this Court, nor for the committees of the House or Senate or members of Congress to comment upon it. It is immaterial whether, as a matter of terminology, it is said that review in this Court of a state judgment declining relief from state restraint is a part of the state judicial process which must be exhausted, or whether it is said to be a part of federal procedure. The issue cannot be settled by use of the proper words. Hawk treated review here as a state remedy. Wade thought it was not state procedure. But undoubtedly review here is a part of the process by which a person unconstitutionally restrained of his liberty may secure redress. Ex parte Hawk had made it clear that all appellate remedies available in the state court and in this Court must be considered as steps in the exhaustion of the state remedy in the sense that the term is used, perhaps inexactly, in the field of habeas corpus. [Footnote 34] Consideration of the legislative
history of § 2254 reveals no suggestion that the draftsmen intended to alter the sense of the term as defined in Hawk or to differentiate between exhaustion of state remedies and review in this Court. All the evidence manifests a purpose to enact Hawk into statute. The reviser's notes, explicitly stating this purpose, remained unchanged throughout the bill's legislative progress. [Footnote 35] So did the statement of the exhaustion principle contained in the first paragraph of § 2254 down to the first "or." [Footnote 36] None of the changes or additions made by the Senate to § 2254 affected the problem of review here. They were directed at other issues. [Footnote 37]
There is an insistence voiced by the dissent that we determine what effect the lower federal courts should accord a denial of certiorari by this Court when the state prisoner later applies for federal habeas corpus. The issue of the effect of such a denial apparently could arise only in a case where, after our refusal, the state prisoner presented his application to another federal court. It is not here in this case. We doubt the effectiveness of a voluntary statement on a point not in issue. [Footnote 38] Whether a refusal to grant certiorari imports an opinion on any issue or not, the reason persists for requiring an application here from the state refusal before application to another federal court.
through judicial error. [Footnote 39] Even after this Court has declined to review a state judgment denying relief, other federal courts have power to act on a new application by the prisoner. [Footnote 40] On that application, the court may require a showing of the record and action on prior applications, and may decline to examine further into the merits because they have already been decided against the petitioner. [Footnote 41] Thus, there is avoided abuse of the writ by repeated attempts to secure a hearing on frivolous grounds, and repeated adjudications of the same issues by courts of coordinate powers.
In this way the record on certiorari in this Court is brought to the attention of the trial court. There have been statements made in former opinions of this Court as to the effect of denial of petitions for habeas corpus. [Footnote 42] Records presented to this Court on petitions in habeas corpus cases raise many different issues. There may be issues of state procedure, questions of fact regarding the alleged violations of constitutional rights, and issues of law respecting the scope of constitutional rights -- problems made difficult by the frequent practice of state courts to dismiss the applications without opinion. If this Court has doubts concerning the basis of state court judgments, the matter may be handled as in Burke v. Georgia, 338 U.S. 941, with an express direction that the petitioner may proceed in the federal district court without prejudice from the denial of his petition for certiorari. If the District Court feels that error may have occurred, it has power to examine the application to see if circumstances exist to justify it in holding a hearing on the
merits. Such freedom of action protects the Great Writ without trivializing it. [Footnote 43]
As the Hawk requirement, we think, has always been the rule, no change in procedure is necessary, and the reiteration of the rule in this decision can, of course, result in no shifting of the burden of work among federal courts. [Footnote 44] No person restrained by state process could heretofore have been certain of a hearing on the merits of his application to a federal district court unless he had sought review in this Court of the state's refusal to release him. [Footnote 45] Further, the rule contributes toward expeditious administration, since it raises the constitutional issue in a federal forum immediately, without the necessity of a second trial
The present case involves a refusal on the merits of state collateral relief from a conviction allegedly obtained in violation of the Constitution. No review was sought in this Court of the state's refusal. Instead, without alleging that review had been sought in this Court and without reliance upon any pleaded facts to excuse such failure, the petitioner filed his application for this habeas corpus in the District Court. Limiting its consideration of the application solely to the question as to whether this was an extraordinary instance that required disregard of accustomed procedure, the District Court found that this was not a case of peculiar urgency. We agree with the lower court's conclusion that it should go no further into consideration of the application. A conviction after public trial in a state court by verdict or plea of guilty places the burden on the accused to allege and prove primary facts, not inferences, that show, notwithstanding the strong presumption of constitutional regularity in state judicial proceedings, that, in his prosecution, the state so departed from constitutional requirements as to justify a federal court's intervention to protect the rights of the accused. [Footnote 46] The petitioner has the burden also of
showing that other available remedies have been exhausted or that circumstances of peculiar urgency exist. Nothing has been pleaded or proved to show that here exceptional circumstances exist to require prompt federal intervention. Oklahoma denied habeas corpus after obviously careful consideration. [Footnote 47] If that denial violated federal constitutional rights, the remedy was here, not in the District Court, and the District Court properly refused to examine the merits.
Davis v. Burke, 179 U. S. 399.
Hawk v. Olson, 326 U. S. 271, 326 U. S. 274.
Holiday v. Johnston, 313 U. S. 342, 313 U. S. 350; Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 334 U. S. 291-292; 28 U.S.C. § 2242, restating R.S. § 754.
See Hawk v. Olson, supra, at 326 U. S. 274-275, notes 3, 4.
Comity through discretion in granting habeas corpus had an antecedent in an early statutory command restraining federal injunctive interference with state courts. 28 U.S.C. § 2283, 1 Stat. 334, § 5; see Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503. Cf. the three-judge district court provisions, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281, 2284.
117 U. S. 117 U.S. 241, 117 U. S. 252; Cook v. Hart, 146 U. S. 183.
111 U. S. 111 U.S. 176, 111 U. S. 182.
In re Duncan, 139 U. S. 449, 139 U. S. 454.
In re Wood, 140 U. S. 278.
In re Jugiro, 140 U. S. 291; In re Frederich, 149 U. S. 70, 149 U. S. 77-78; New York v. Eno, 155 U. S. 89, 155 U. S. 98; Pepke v. Cronan, 155 U. S. 100; Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231, 160 U. S. 242; Tinsley v. Anderson, 171 U. S. 101, 171 U. S. 104-105; Minnesota v. Brundage, 180 U. S. 499, 180 U. S. 503; Reid v. Jones, 187 U. S. 153; Urquhart v. Brown, 205 U. S. 179, 205 U. S. 181-182; United States ex rel. Kennedy v. Tyler, 269 U. S. 13, 269 U. S. 17.
169 U. S. 169 U.S. 284, 169 U. S. 291.
175 U. S. 175 U.S. 184, 175 U. S. 187.
Ex parte Spencer, 228 U. S. 652, 228 U. S. 660-661.
New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63, 278 U. S. 70.
321 U. S. 321 U.S. 114, 321 U. S. 116-117.
324 U. S. 760, 324 U. S. 764.
324 U. S. 324 U.S. 760, 324 U. S. 765. In the White case, we concluded that the state ground was the refusal by the Supreme Court of Illinois to entertain applications with possible fact controversies. Pp. 324 U. S. 766-767. We made it clear that, while proper procedure does not require review in this Court of a judgment denying habeas corpus on an adequate state ground, other available state remedies must be exhausted before an application should be entertained in a district court. P. 324 U. S. 767.
See White v. Ragen, 324 U. S. 760; Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 117 U. S. 251.
Young v. Ragen, 337 U. S. 235, 337 U. S. 238, reads:
Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 19 U. S. 399-400; Wright v. United States, 302 U. S. 583, 302 U. S. 593-594.
Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 265 U. S. 230.
Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241.
Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114, 321 U. S. 117; House v. Mayo, 324 U. S. 42, 324 U. S. 48; White v. Ragen, 324 U. S. 760, 324 U. S. 764-765.
Wade v. Mayo, 334 U. S. 672, 334 U. S. 681.
In re Cuddy, 131 U. S. 280; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 304 U. S. 468; Walker v. Johnston, 312 U. S. 275, 312 U. S. 286; Hawk v. Olson, 326 U. S. 271, 326 U. S. 279.
Prior to the Civil War, habeas corpus was available in the United States courts, barring limited exceptions, only for those in federal custody. The Act of February 5, 1867, extended the power of the United States courts to grant writs of habeas corpus to "all cases where any person may be restrained of his . . . liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States. . . ." 14 Stat. 385. A conflict between State and federal authorities in relation to the administration of criminal justice touches that "very delicate matter" at its most sensitive point. The Act of 1867 opened wide the door to that conflict. It has become intensified during the last twenty years because of the increasing subjection of State convictions to federal judicial review through the expanded concept of due process. See, e.g., Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, and Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103. It ought not to be too surprising therefore that the full implications of federal restrictions upon the free range of a State's criminal justice have taken time to unfold.
2. Decisions on matters of procedure within the Court's control ought not to be like shifting sand. Quick fluctuations in them should be avoided unless a rule of practice has proven itself mischievous in practice. The real question before us in this case is whether Wade v. Mayo, 334 U. S. 672, should be overruled. Whether this overruling is to be done forthrightly by two words saying the case "is overruled" or the overruling is euphemistically done by fifteen words hardly changes the fact. Respect for an explicit adjudication on a matter of procedure very recently rendered after the fullest consideration, as well as the soundness of the decision, should lead us to adhere to Wade v. Mayo.
334 U.S. at 334 U. S. 674-675.
334 U.S. at 334 U. S. 686.
The problem as rephrased in the dissent stated with precision the decisive inquiry. Relief from a federal court cannot come until corrective State process to vindicate the claimed federal right is unavailable. This has been so ever since Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241. Therefore, if the "state remedies" which must be exhausted include an application for review of a State court's decision by our discretionary writ of certiorari, it would be premature
4. The answer which the dissent gave to the problem determined the dissent. It concluded "that certiorari should be considered a part of the state procedure for purposes of habeas corpus." 334 U.S. at 334 U. S. 689. The Court's analysis of the problem led to the contrary result. While fully acknowledging the principle that State remedies must be exhausted before relief can be sought in a federal court, it rejected the notion that an application to this Court for review by certiorari can be deemed part of the State remedies.
of his alleged federal constitutional right. The Court may grant his petition and decide the issue against him. If the petition is granted and the State's view of his federal claim is sustained here, he may still sue out a writ in the District Court. The doctrine of res judicata is inapplicable. In the Sacco-Vanzetti case, application was first made to the Circuit Justice, then to the Senior Circuit Judge, and thereafter to the District Judge. See 5 The Sacco-Vanzetti Case 5532, 5533, 5534. To be sure, prior denials carry considerable weight in disposing of a later application, but merely by way of safeguard against "abusive use" of the writ while fully respecting "its recognized status as a privileged writ of freedom." Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 265 U. S. 232.
7. The significance of a denial of a petition for certiorari ought no longer to require discussion. This Court has said again and again and again that such a denial has no legal significance whatever bearing on the merits of the claim. The denial means that this Court has refused to take the case. It means nothing else. The State court's judgment is left undisturbed without any legal reinforcement whatever of the views which the State court expressed. Counsel at the bar have frequently been stopped for drawing comfort out of such a denial, and the Court's opinions have indicated impatience with failure to recognize that the only thing that such a denial imports is that there were not four members of the Court who deemed it desirable, for their respective reasons, to review a decision of the lower court. Even before the Judiciary Act of 1925 so vastly extended this Court's certiorari jurisdiction, the Court said: "The denial of a writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case, as the bar has been told many times." United States v. Carver, 260 U. S. 482, 260 U. S. 490. This note of impatience has been sounded repeatedly.
contradict all that led to the adoption of certiorari jurisdiction and would reject the whole course of the Court's treatment of such petitions, both in practice and profession. For if denial does import an expression of opinion upon the merits of the case, then we must deal with the merits of the case. During the last four fiscal years, the District Courts throughout the country had annually from 500 to 600 habeas corpus cases brought by petitioners under State custody. To overrule Wade v. Mayo and to make it the duty of this Court to pass on the merits of anything like the number of these cases which would have to be brought here on petitions for certiorari from the State courts would throw an almost impossible burden upon the Court. [Footnote 2/1]
Nothing stands out more prominently in the Court's experience with these cases than the doubts and difficulties in ascertaining the law controlling local practice and local remedies. Thus, according to the procedure of one State a constitutional issue like that in Mooney v. Holohan, supra, must be raised by habeas corpus, not coram nobis, while in another State, only coram nobis is available, not habeas corpus. Although a State court may have felt that it wrote clearly, we may not be able to read it clearly, or at least in unison; some members of the Court read it one way, some another. See, e.g., New York ex rel. Whitman v. Wilson, 318 U. S. 688; Morhous v. Supreme Court of New York, 293 N.Y. 131, 56 N.E.2d 79; People v. Sadness, 300 N.Y. 69, 89 N.E.2d 188.
The difficulties in determining exhaustion of State remedies are illustrated by a litigation another stage of which was reached by denial of certiorari last Monday. Hawk v. Nebraska, 339 U.S. 923. At an earlier date, the Supreme Court of Nebraska had affirmed a denial of habeas corpus by the lower State court. Hawk v. Olson, 145 Neb. 306, 16 N.W.2d 181. This Court granted certiorari and reversed on the merits, acting on the assumption that a federal right had been disregarded, 326 U. S. 271, despite our earlier statement in Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114, 321 U. S. 116, to the effect that State remedies could not be deemed exhausted in Nebraska until coram nobis had been attempted. On the remand, the Nebraska Supreme Court advised us that we had misconceived its opinion and misunderstood local procedure -- that it had not denied a federal claim out of hand, but decided only that habeas corpus was not the proper procedural road to take in Nebraska. 146 Neb. 875, 22 N.W.2d 136. Hawk then applied for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal District Court for Nebraska,
The Hawk litigation illustrates the importance of the doctrine of exhaustion of State remedies. That doctrine is vital to the harmonious functioning of two judicial systems where one is subordinate to the other. But the litigation also shows that waste and friction are bound to be promoted if review of State court decisions in this field will have to come here initially. We are dealing with elusive and treacherous local legal materials which, in their nature, are not within the special competence of this Court. Such materials look one way if one examines only the dead letter of print. But to one brought up within the local system, they carry meaning which never can be got from books. See Diaz v. Gonzalez, 261 U. S. 102, 261 U. S. 106. The surefooted manner in which the federal district judge dealt with Nebraska procedure in Hawk v. Olson, supra, indicates that he would not have made the error into which this Court fell. The Nebraska situation is representative of the difficulties and doubts that this Court has encountered again and again in regard to the local remedies available. The matter comes peculiarly within the rule of wisdom, often applied by this Court, whereby questions of local law and local practices will not be decided here, but will be submitted to the knowledgeable views of federal judges in the various localities. See Gardner v. New Jersey, 329 U. S. 565, 329 U. S. 583, and cases cited. This rule respects all the considerations that preclude intervention by a federal court until the State courts have fully acted.
Burke v. Georgia, 338 U.S. 941, is another admirable illustration of why we should not require cases raising a dubious constitutional question as to the validity of State convictions to be brought here before habeas corpus is sought in the District Courts. That we denied certiorari "without prejudice" to future proceedings in the District Court carried no legal significance. [Footnote 2/2] The case merely demonstrates how frequently in this situation preliminary questions of State procedure and State court jurisdiction are involved. Instead of allowing these local issues to be canvassed initially in the District Courts, it is now proposed to deal with cases like Burke v. Georgia by requiring that they be brought here enveloped in the fog of State procedural law, and then leaving it to the District Courts to lift the fog after we have concluded that it is took thick for us to pierce. Such procedure, I submit, would neither further the administration of justice nor be conducive to the proper use of this Court's time for the effective conduct of its inescapable business nor advance the self-esteem of State courts.
for this Court's decisions under the Due Process Clause. [Footnote 2/3]
Even though a petition for habeas corpus in a federal District Court may involve constitutional questions which were found against the petitioner by the highest court of his State, the District Court is not sitting as a court of review of the State court. A petition for habeas corpus in a federal court, after the State process has been exhausted, "comes in from the outside," as Mr. Justice Holmes phrased it in his dissenting opinion in Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, 237 U. S. 345-346 -- a view which established itself as law in Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86. If it be suggested that, as a matter of appearance, legal analysis apart, a federal District Court might be granting relief which the highest court of the State had denied, the same unanalyzed appearance would attach to a District Court's granting relief after this Court had denied it.
not first sought here. The error derives from the assumption that a petition for certiorari to this Court was included in the "State remedies available" which must be exhausted before a federal court can entertain a writ of habeas corpus. This assumption appears for the first time in a per curiam opinion in Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114, 321 U. S. 117. It was repeated, though not in issue, in the per curiam in White v. Ragen, 324 U. S. 760, 324 U. S. 764. A consideration of what actually was said in Ex parte Hawk on this matter makes it perfectly clear how the misconception about certiorari in relation to the District Court's jurisdiction in habeas corpus crept into Ex parte Hawk. The following is everything contained in Ex parte Hawk on the subject:
"Ordinarily, an application for habeas corpus by one detained under a state court judgment of conviction for crime will be entertained by a federal court only after all state remedies available, including all appellate remedies in the state courts and in this Court by appeal or writ of certiorari, have been exhausted. Tinsley v. Anderson, 171 U. S. 101, 171 U. S. 104-105; Urquhart v. Brown, 205 U. S. 179; United States ex rel. Kennedy v. Tyler, 269 U. S. 13; Mooney v. Holohan, supra, 294 U. S. 115; Ex parte Abernathy, 320 U. S. 219."
321 U.S. at 321 U. S. 116-117.
The essence of this statement is the doctrine of exhaustion of State remedies. Two of the citations -- Mooney v. Holohan and Ex parte Abernathy-have only that relevance. The three other citations -- Tinsley v. Anderson; Urquhart v. Brown; United States ex rel. Kennedy v. Tyler -- are directed to the particularization in the main statement as to the exhaustion of "all state remedies available, including all appellate remedies . . . in this Court. . . ." These three cases illustrate a series of decisions in this Court holding that a lower federal court
ordinarily ought not to exercise its jurisdiction in habeas corpus in favor of one in State custody even after a final determination by the highest court of a State unless he has availed himself of his remedy "to review it by writ of error from this court." Tinsley v. Anderson, 171 U. S. 101, 171 U. S. 105.
Of course. A writ of error was a writ of right. It makes all the difference in the world whether a prisoner knocks at the door of this Court to invoke its grace or has unquestioned access for the final determination of the federal question as to which the highest court of the State was merely an intermediate tribunal. The latter was the situation in the three cases cited in Ex parte Hawk. In the writ of error cases, this Court held habeas corpus in the lower federal courts ought not to take the place of a mandatory appeal. Markuson v. Boucher, 175 U. S. 184.
The reasons underlying stare decisis are not applicable to such a procedural suggestion as Ex parte Hawk made regarding the requirement of petitioning this Court for certiorari before evoking the District Court's jurisdiction on habeas corpus. That suggestion never was translated into practice so far as the records of this Court disclose. What was specifically decided in Ex parte Hawk did become the practice of this Court -- that is, petitions for leave to file a writ of habeas corpus in this Court under § 262 of the Judicial Code, now 28 U.S.C. § 1651, were thereafter denied. But no instance has been revealed in which this Court acted on the suggestion that exhaustion of State remedies includes denial of certiorari here. Apart from the fact that Wade v. Mayo displaced the inclusion of certiorari as part of the State remedies, it was recognized at the last term of Court that the scope of Ex parte Hawk was that it expressed the "doctrine of exhaustion of state remedies." Young v. Ragen, 337 U. S. 235, 337 U. S. 238.
Wade v. Mayo made it clear that certiorari is not a remedy "available in the courts of the State," and no claim is now made to the contrary. With that abandonment goes the uncritical inclusion by Ex parte Hawk of certiorari among the remedies of the State. Wade v. Mayo, to be sure, could not have been before the Congress, but the Reviser characterized § 2254 as "declaratory of existing law as affirmed by the Supreme Court," adding "See Ex parte Hawk." That decision is sound enough in its essential requirement for "exhaustion of state remedies." The slip in analysis it contained as to what are "State remedies" is surely not the equivalent of an enactment by Congress. A far more persuasive case for finding reenactment by Congress of a decision of this Court was rejected in Girouard v. United States, 328 U. S. 61.
* [MR. JUSTICE Jackson also joined in this opinion. See post, p. 339 U. S. 238.]
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