Court Opinion

ID: 9427001
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:26.261087+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.444977
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
dissenting in part.
In defining the jurisdiction of this Court to review the final judgments rendered by the highest court of a State, Congress has sharply differentiated between cases in which the state court has rejected a federal claim and those in which the federal claim has been vindicated. In the former category our jurisdiction is mandatory; in the latter, it is discretionary.1
*104Our jurisdiction in this case is in the discretionary category. The Idaho Supreme Court has ordered the Idaho Department of Employment to pay benefits to an Idaho resident, resting its decision on an interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Since this decision does not create a conflict and does not involve a question of national importance, it is inappropriate to grant certiorari and order full briefing and oral argument.
Even though there was error in the Idaho Supreme Court’s use of the Fourteenth Amendment as a basis for providing an Idaho resident with more protection than the Federal Constitution requires, I do not believe that error is a sufficient justification for the exercise of this Court’s discretionary jurisdiction. We are much too busy to correct every error that is called to our attention in the thousands of certiorari petitions that are filed each year. Whenever we attempt to do so summarily, we court the danger of either committing error ourselves or of confusing rather than clarifying the law.2 This risk is aggravated when the losing litigant is too poor to hire a lawyer, as is true in this case.3 Moreover, this Court’s *105random and spasmodic efforts to correct errors summarily may create the unfortunate impression that the Court is more interested in upholding the power of the State than in vindicating individual rights.
For these reasons, although I have no quarrel with the majority’s analysis of the merits, I think it would have been wise for the Court to deny certiorari in this case.

 Title 28 U. S. C. § 1257 provides:
“§ 1257. State courts; appeal; certiorari
“Final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had, may be reviewed by the Supreme Court as follows:
.“(1) By appeal, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States and the decision is against its validity.
“(2) By appeal, where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of *104any state on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity.
“(3) By writ of certiorari, where the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States is drawn in question or where the validity of a State statute is drawn in question on'the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, or where any title, right, privilege or immunity is specially set up or claimed under the Constitution, treaties or statutes of, or commission held or authority exercised under, the United States.
“Eor the purposes of this section, the term 'highest court of a State’ includes the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.”

 Cf. Hammer v. Oregon State Penitentiary, 276 Ore. 651, 556 P. 2d 1348 (1976), summarily vacated and remanded, post, p. 945. (Stevens, J., dissenting).

 Respondent originally submitted a pro se letter in opposition to the petition for certiorari. Through the efforts of petitioner itself, a brief was eventually submitted on her behalf by a professor at the Idaho College of Law.