Opinion ID: 106548
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: constitutional barrier.

Text: The true significance of today's decision can perhaps best be laid bare in terms of a hypothetical case presenting questions of the powers of this Court on direct review, and of a Federal District Court on habeas corpus. 1. On direct review. Assume that a man is indicted, and held for trial in a state court, by a grand jury from which members of his race have been systematically excluded. Assume further that the State requires any objection to the composition of the grand jury to be raised prior to the verdict, that no such objection is made, and that the defendant seeks to raise the point for the first time on appeal from his conviction. If the state appellate court refuses to consider the claim because it was raised too late, and if certiorari is sought and granted, the initial question before this Court will be whether there was an adequate state ground for the judgment below. If the petitioner was represented by counsel not shown to be incompetent, and if the necessary information to make the objection is not shown to have been unavailable at the time of trial, it is certain that the judgment of conviction will stand, despite the fact the indictment was obtained in violation of the petitioner's constitutional rights. [20] What is the reason for the rule that an adequate and independent state ground of decision bars Supreme Court review of that decisiona rule which, of course, is as applicable to procedural as to substantive grounds? In Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 632-636, it was concluded that under the governing statute (i) the Court did not have jurisdiction, on review of a state decision, to examine and decide questions not of a Federal character, id., at 633, and (ii) an erroneous decision of a federal question by a state court could not warrant reversal if there were: any other matter or issue adjudged by the State court, which is sufficiently broad to maintain the judgment of that court, notwithstanding the error in deciding the issue raised by the Federal question. Id., at 636. But as the Court in Murdock so strongly implied, and as emphasized in subsequent decisions, the adequate state ground rule has roots far deeper than the statutes governing our jurisdiction, and rests on fundamentals that touch this Court's habeas corpus jurisdiction equally with its direct reviewing power. An examination of the alternatives that might conceivably be followed will, I submit, confirm that the rule is one of constitutional dimensions going to the heart of the division of judicial powers in a federal system. One alternative to the present rule would be for the Court to review and decide any federal questions in the case, even if the determination of nonfederal questions were adequate to sustain the judgment below, and then to send the case back to the state court for further consideration. But it needs no extended analysis to demonstrate that such action would exceed this Court's powers under Article III. As stated in Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117, 126: [O]ur power is to correct wrong judgments, not to revise opinions. We are not permitted to render an advisory opinion, and if the same judgment would be rendered by the state court after we corrected its views of federal laws, our review could amount to nothing more than an advisory opinion. Another alternative, which would avoid the problem of advisory opinions, would be to take the entire case and to review on the merits the state court's decision of every question in it. For example, in our hypothetical case the Court might consider on its merits the question whether the state court correctly ruled that under state law objections to the composition of the grand jury must be made prior to the verdict. To a limited extent, of course, this procedural ruling of the state court raises federal as well as state questions. It is clear that a State may not preclude Supreme Court review of federal claims by discriminating against or evading the assertion of a federal right, and indeed that state procedural grounds for refusal to consider a federal claim must rest on a fair or substantial basis. [21] Occasionally this means that a state procedural rule which may properly preclude the raising of state claims in a state court cannot thwart review of federal claims in this Court. [22] These principles are inherent in the concept that a state ground, to be of sufficient breadth to support the judgment, must be both adequate and independent. But determination of the adequacy and independence of the state ground, I submit, marks the constitutional limit of our power in this sphere. The reason why this is so was perhaps most articulately expressed in a different but closely related context by Mr. Justice Field in his opinion in Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Baugh, 149 U. S. 368, 401. He stated, in a passage quoted with approval by the Court in the historic decision in Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, 78-79: [T]he Constitution of the United States . . . recognizes and preserves the autonomy and independence of the Statesindependence in their legislative and independence in their judicial departments. Supervision over either the legislative or the judicial action of the States is in no case permissible except as to matters by the Constitution specifically authorized or delegated to the United States. Any interference with either, except as thus permitted, is an invasion of the authority of the State and, to that extent, a denial of its independence. For this Court to go beyond the adequacy of the state ground and to review and determine the correctness of that ground on its merits would, in our hypothetical case, be to assume full control over a State's procedures for the administration of its own criminal justice. This is and must be beyond our power if the federal system is to exist in substance as well as form. The right of the State to regulate its own procedures governing the conduct of litigants in its courts, and its interest in supervision of those procedures, stand on the same constitutional plane as its right and interest in framing substantive laws governing other aspects of the conduct of those within its borders. There is still a third possible course this Court might follow if it were to reject the adequate state ground rule. The Act of 1867, which in § 1 extended the habeas corpus jurisdiction to state prisoners detained in violation of federal law, in § 2 gave the Supreme Court the authority, in cases coming from the state courts, to order execution directly without remanding the case. 14 Stat. 385, 386-387. That authority, which has been exercised at least once, [23] remained unimpaired through the modifications of appellate and certiorari jurisdiction, [24] and exists today. [25] Acting pursuant to that authority in our hypothetical case, this Court might grant certiorari, ignore the state ground of decision, decide the federal question and, instead of merely remanding the case, issue a writ requiring the petitioner's release from custody. By this simple device, the Court, it might be argued, would avoid problems of advisory opinions while at the same time refraining from consideration of questions of state law. But apart from the unseemliness of such a disposition, it is apparent that what the Court would actually be doing would be to decide the state law question sub silentio and to reverse the state court judgment on that question. For if the petitioner is detained pursuant to the judgment, and his detention is to be terminated, that must mean that the state ground is not adequate to support the only purpose for which the judgment was rendered. The judgment, in other words, becomes a nullity. Moreover, the future effect of such a disposition is precisely the same as a reversal on the merits of the question of state law. If noncompliance with a state rule requiring a particular constitutional claim to be raised before verdict does not preclude consideration of the claim by this Court, then the rule is invalid in every significant sense, since no judgment based on its application can ever be effective. In short, the constitutional infirmities of such a disposition by this Court are the same as those inherent in review of the state question on its merits. The vice, however, is greater because the Court would, in actuality, be invalidating a state rule without even purporting to consider it. 2. On habeas corpus. The adequate state ground doctrine thus finds its source in basic constitutional principles, and the question before us is whether this is as true in a collateral attack in habeas corpus as on direct review. Assume, then, that after dismissal of the writ of certiorari in our hypothetical case, the prisoner seeks habeas corpus in a Federal District Court, again complaining of the composition of the grand jury that indicted him. Is that federal court constitutionally more free than the Supreme Court on direct review to ignore the adequate state ground, proceed to the federal question, and order the prisoner's release? The answer must be that it is not. Of course, as the majority states, a judgment is not a jurisdictional prerequisite to a habeas corpus application, ante, p. 430, but that is wholly irrelevant. The point is that if the applicant is detained pursuant to a judgment, termination of the detention necessarily nullifies the judgment. The fact that a District Court on habeas has fewer choices than the Supreme Court, since it can only act on the body of the prisoner, does not alter the significance of the exercise of its power. In habeas as on direct review, ordering the prisoner's release invalidates the judgment of conviction and renders ineffective the state rule relied upon to sustain that judgment. Try as the majority does to turn habeas corpus into a roving commission of inquiry into every possible invasion of the applicant's civil rights that may ever have occurred, it cannot divorce the writ from a judgment of conviction if that judgment is the basis of the detention. Thus in the present case if this Court had granted certiorari to review the State's denial of coram nobis, had considered the coerced confession claim, and had ordered Noia's release, the necessary effects of that disposition would have been (1) to set aside the conviction and (2) to invalidate application of the New York rule requiring the claim to be raised on direct appeal in order to be preserved. It is, I think, beyond dispute that the Court does exactly the same thing by affirming the decision below in this case. In doing so, the Court exceeds its constitutional power if in fact the state ground relied upon to sustain the judgment of conviction is an adequate one. See pp. 472-476, infra. The effect of the approach adopted by the Court is, indeed, to do away with the adequate state ground rule entirely in every state case, involving a federal question, in which detention follows from a judgment. The majority seems to recognize at least some of the consequences of its decision when it attempts to fill the void created by abolition of the adequate state ground rule in state criminal cases. But the substitute it has fashionedthat of conscious waiver or deliberate by-passing of state proceduresis, as I shall next try to show, wholly unsatisfactory.