Court Opinion

ID: 9426863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:07.926649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:03.509930
License: Public Domain

Mr.. Justice Rehnquist, with whom The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Stewart join,
dissenting.
The Court treats an application filed here to stay a judgment of the Circuit Court of Cook County as a petition for certiorari to review the refusal of the Supreme Court of *45Illinois to stay the injunction. It summarily reverses this refusal of a stay. I simply do not see how the refusal of the Supreme Court of Illinois to stay an injunction granted by an inferior court within the state system can be described as a “[fj-inal judgmen[t] or decre[e] rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had/’ which is the limitation that Congress has imposed on our jurisdiction to review state-court judgments under 28 U. S. C. § 1257. Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 476-487 (1975), relied upon by the Court, which surely took as liberal a view of this jurisdictional grant as can reasonably be taken, does not support the result reached by the Court here. In Cox there had been a final decision on the federal claim by the Supreme Court of Georgia, which was the highest court of that State in which such a decision could be had. Here all the Supreme Court of Illinois has done is, in the exercise of the discretion possessed by every appellate court, to deny a stay of a lower court ruling pending appeal. No Illinois appellate court has heard or decided the merits of applicants’ federal claim.
I do not disagree with the Court that the provisions of the injunction issued by the Circuit Court of Cook County are extremely broad, and I would expect that if the Illinois appellate courts follow cases such as Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965), and Nebraska Press Assn. v. Stuart, 423 U. S. 1319 (1975), relied upon by the Court, the injunction will be at least substantially modified by them. But I do not believe that in the long run respect for the Constitution or for the law is encouraged by actions of this Court which disregard the limitations placed on us by Congress in order to assure that an erroneous injunction issued by a state trial court does not wrongly interfere with the constitutional rights of those enjoined.