Court Opinion

ID: 9475496
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:28:59.670173+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:44.946935
License: Public Domain

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the refusal to grant rehearing:
This court has ruled repeatedly that we will not consider issues that were not raised below,1 and, a fortiori, that we will not consider issues that are not raised by the litigants on appeal2 save when they undermine our jurisdiction.3 Davis’ petition for rehearing points out that the State did not raise, either in the district court or in its brief on appeal, the defense that Stone v. Powell4 barred relitigation of his fourth amendment claim, and that this court both raised and decided the question sua sponte. My colleagues concede that these contentions are factually correct. Their opinion in denying rehearing, therefore, seeks to justify their initiative in discovering the issue as well as in deciding it.
Stone, as the majority concedes, does not declare a jurisdictional rule. The Stone opinion expressly states:
Our decision does not mean that the federal court lacks jurisdiction over such a claim, but only that the application of the rule is limited to cases in which there has been both such a showing and a Fourth Amendment violation.5
In subsequent dicta, this court has interpreted Stone to mean what the opinion says it does not. In O’Berry v. Wainwright,6 we said:
Despite the assertions of the Supreme Court in Stone to the contrary, we would be blind to reality to pretend that the practical effect of that decision is not a limitation on federal court jurisdiction.7
That our reading of Stone in O’Berry was incorrect was made clear by the Su*1374preme Court last term in Kimmelman v. Morrison.8 The Court there said:
The Court made clear in Stone that it rested its holding on prudential, rather than jurisdictional, grounds. Id., [428 U.S.] at 495, n. 37, 96 S.Ct., at 3052 n. 37 (“Our decision does not mean that the federal court lacks jurisdiction over ... [a Fourth Amendment] claim, but only that the application of the [exclusionary] rule is limited”).9
In a number of cases considered by us before Kimmelman was rendered, we have considered a state’s Stone defense on appeal although it was not raised in the trial court,10 but the opinions in these cases do not indicate that we have ever done so when the issue was not even raised by the state in its appellate briefs and when, in addition, the petitioner has objected to our doing so.
Acknowledging that we have jurisdiction, my colleagues say that they act only for prudential reasons. It seems to me most imprudential, however, for this court on appeal sua sponte to devise reasons to deny relief to a petitioner in a habeas corpus case. We do not assist the defendant by raising such a defense in any other kind of case, and I see no reason to depart from our settled rules in order to assist the Attorney General of the State of Louisiana.
My colleagues seek to justify acting sua sponte by relying on cases in which we have raised on our own initiative a litigant’s lack of standing. I do not consider these cases to be analogous, for in them the want of standing was a constitutional defect, the absence of a case or controversy.11
The Supreme Court has, of course, held that, even when Article III requirements are met, “a plaintiff may still lack standing under the prudential principles by which the judiciary seeks to avoid deciding questions of broad social import where no individual rights would be vindicated and to limit access to the federal courts to those litigants best suited to assert a particular claim.”12 As supposed authority for acting sua sponte on nonconstitutional grounds, my colleagues rely, erroneously in my opinion, on Tileston v. Ullman.13 The Supreme Court said-of Tileston in Griswold v. Connecticut,14
Tileston v. Ullman is different, for there the plaintiff seeking to represent others asked for a declaratory judgment. In that situation we thought that the requirements of standing should be strict, lest the standards of “case or controversy” in Article III of the Constitution become blurred.15
The Court took the same view of Tileston in Eisenstadt v. Baird,16 in which it said:
Underlying the [Tileston ] decision was the concern that “the standards of ‘case or controversy’ in Article III of the Constitution [not] become blurred,” Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 481, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 1679, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) —a problem that is not at all involved in this case.17
*1375Even if, however, Tileston was not decided on constitutional grounds, it does not appear that the Supreme Court in that case raised the standing question on its own initiative. Tileston, therefore, cannot support the argument that we can sua sponte raise Stone or other defensive issues that do not hinge on constitutional questions.
If a petitioner pleads that he has not had a full and fair hearing in state court, and the state fails to demur, there is no reason even for a trial court to go further, and the trial court properly did not do so in this case. As the original opinion noted, Davis asserted in the district court that his petition was not barred by Stone, and the State did not even counter his pleadings. In his “Traverse to State’s Answer” filed in the district court, Davis cited Stone v. Powell and stated:
[T]he United States Supreme Court [in Stone ] held: “ ... where the State has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment Claim, the Constitution does not require that a state prisoner be granted federal habeas corpus relief____”
Nonetheless, petitioner argues that Stone v. Powell, supra, does not bar federal habeas corpus relief in the case sub judice, because the trial court’s judgment denying the motion to suppress is not supported by the records, even after embracing the entire state court records. See, 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(8).
Davis’ pleading might have been better phrased, but he is, after all, a pro se litigant, entitled to have his pleadings read with reasonable tolerance. Under Hab. Corp.R. 5,18 as well as Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(d), this pleading requires an answer, which, if not made, constitutes an admission of the petitioner’s claim. The only exception to this rule is when the frivolousness of a habeas corpus claim is so clear that the district court should dismiss it without requiring an answer.19 My colleagues do not suggest that Davis’ habeas corpus petition is so clearly frivolous as to warrant application of this exception. The state’s failure to respond to Davis’ allegation, therefore, should be deemed an admission that the state courts did not afford Davis an opportunity for full and fair litigation.
Comity to state courts does not require us to act as the State’s advocate. A federal appellate court ought not sua sponte supply a motion to dismiss for failure either of pleading or proof, then decide that the motion that the court itself supplied has merit, only in order, as our original opinion puts it, to “affirm for a different reason.” I therefore respectfully dissent from the failure of the majority to grant the petition for rehearing and to rule on the merits of the issues properly before us.

. See, e.g., Zuccarello v. Exxon Corp., 756 F.2d 402, 407-08 (5th Cir.1985); Domed Stadium Hotel, Inc. v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 732 F.2d 480, 488 n. 7 (5th Cir.1984); McGruder v. Necaise, 733 F.2d 1146, 1148 (5th Cir.1984).

. See, e.g, State of Ala. v. Woody, 473 F.2d 10, 12-14 (5th Cir.1973); 21 Turtle Creek Square, Ltd. v. N.Y. State Teachers' Retirement Sys., 404 F.2d 31, 32 (5th Cir.1968).

. 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976).

. 428 U.S. at 494 n. 37, 96 S.Ct. at 3052 n. 37.

. 546 F.2d 1204 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 433 U.S. 911, 97 S.Ct. 2981, 53 L.Ed.2d 1096 (1977).

. 546 F.2d at 1211-12.

. --- U.S. ---, 106 S.Ct. 2574, 91 L.Ed.2d 305 (1986).

. Id. at ---, 106 S.Ct. at 2585 n. 4 (changes in original).

. See Billiot v. Maggio, 694 F.2d 98 (5th Cir.1982); Morgan v. Estelle, 588 F.2d 934 (5th Cir.1979); Jordan v. Estelle, 551 F.2d 612 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 957, 98 S.Ct. 485, 54 L.Ed.2d 316 (1977); Cole v. Estelle, 548 F.2d 1164 (5th Cir.1977); O’Berry, 546 F.2d 1204; Flood v. Louisiana, 545 F.2d 460 (5th Cir.1977).

. U.S. Const, art. Ill, § 2.

. Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99-100, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 1608, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979).

. 318 U.S. 44, 63 S.Ct. 493, 87 L.Ed. 603 (1943).

. 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965).

. Id. at 481, 85 S.Ct. at 1679 (citation omitted).

. 405 U.S. 438, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972). See also E. Barrett & W. Cohen, Constitutional Law, Cases and Materials 117 (6th ed. 1981).

. 405 U.S. at 443 n. 4, 92 S.Ct. at 1033 n. 4.

. 28 U.S.C. foil. § 2254 (1986).

. 28 U.S.C. foil. § 2254, Rule 4 & Advisory Committee Note (1986).