Court Opinion

ID: 9430957
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:31:00.42529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:07.629070
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
Without bothering to identify the basis for federal jurisdiction in this case, the Court blithely assumes that' the decision below does not rest on an independent and adequate state ground. I cannot agree. State procedural rules are often patterned after federal precedents, but they are, nonetheless, rules of state law. In this case, the Pennsylvania Superior Court explicitly stated that it was applying “Pennsylvania law concerning procedures to be followed when a court-appointed attorney sees no basis for an appeal.” 330 Pa. Super. 313, 318, 479 A. 2d 568, 570 (1984) (emphasis added). As for federal precedents, the court simply noted that state law in the area was “derived from” this Court’s 1967 decision in Anders v. California, 386 U. S. 738. Thus, I believe that the “plain statement” test of Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1037-1044 (1983), is satisfied, and that the decision on review rested on independent and adequate state grounds. Moreover, it seems rather clear to me, for the reasons stated in Part I of Justice Brennan’s dissent, that the decision below did not rest alone on that portion of the discussion which could conceivably be considered to be based on Anders. See ante, at 561-563. In either event, there is no basis for concluding that the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s decision to remand this case stemmed from its belief that the Federal Constitution required it to do so.
But even if I believed that the court relied on some federal precedents, and that the sacrosanct “plain statement” were missing, I would still conclude that this Court lacks jurisdiction over the case. It is unrealistic — and quite unfair — to expect the judges in the Philadelphia office of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania to acquire and retain familiarity with this Court’s jurisprudence concerning the intricacies of our own jurisdiction. The occasions on which the decisions of *571the judges in that office will be subject to direct review by the Supreme Court of the United States are far too rare to make it appropriate for them to become familiar with the Michigan v. Long presumption. It is denigrating enough to require the justices of the 50 State Supreme Courts to include such a statement in their decisions, without demanding the same of the 716 state appellate judges or all 20,000 state-court judges who decide cases that could conceivably be reviewed by this Court.*
Before the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania petitioned this Court for a writ of certiorari, it sought review of the Superior Court’s judgment in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Had it not done so, this Court could not have accepted jurisdiction of the petition because cases originating in a state court may not be reviewed here unless the judgment was “rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had.” 28 U. S. C. § 1257. When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court' dismissed the Commonwealth’s appeal as improvidently granted, it did not accompany its order with any statement of reasons. We thus have no way of knowing whether its action was based on a correct interpretation of Pennsylvania law or an incorrect interpretation of federal law.
In my opinion, due respect for the courts of the States, as well as our separate interest in the “avoidance of rendering advisory opinions,” Michigan v. Long, supra, at 1040, strongly favors the former presumption. I would not take yet another step down the jurisdiction-expanding path marked by Michigan v. Long, see Delaware v. Van Arsdall, *572475 U. S. 673, 689 (1986) (Stevens, J., dissenting). Instead, I would dismiss the writ for want of jurisdiction.
I respectfully dissent.

These figures are based on 1984 statistics as reported in two recent publications. See Conference of State Court Administrators and the Court Statistics and Information Project of the National Center for State Courts, R. Roper, M. Eisner, & V. Flango, 1984 State Appellate Court Jurisdiction Guide for Statistical Reporting 5-9 (1985) (figure for appellate judges); National Center for State Courts, State Court Caseload Statistics: Annual Report 1984, pp. 195-248 (June 1986) (figure for all judges).