Court Opinion

ID: 9428006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:33.443385+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:10.481995
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
with whom Mr. Justice White joins, dissenting.
The opinion of the Court begins by stating that we granted certiorari to decide the question of whether a sentence of *647death may be constitutionally imposed after a Jury verdict of guilt of a capital offense, when the jury was not permitted to consider a verdict of guilt of a lesser included noncapital offense where the evidence would have supported such a verdict. I find the Court’s treatment of this issue highly unusual, since although this question was raised in the Alabama trial court and the Alabama intermediate Court of Appeals, it was not preserved in the Supreme Court of Alabama. That court began its opinion with this language:
“Petitioner Beck raises only one issue here:
“ ‘Whether the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals erred in its finding that the Alabama Death Penalty Statute is not in violation of Article III, Section 43, Article V, Section 124 and Amendment 38, of the 1901 Constitution of Alabama.’ ” 365 So. 2d 1006, 1007.
Obviously, unless the Supreme Court of Alabama was wholly in error in deciding what issue petitioner had raised there, it was obviously not a question involving the United States Constitution.
I do not believe it suffices, under the jurisdiction granted to us by the Constitution and by Congress, to brush this matter off as the Court does in its footnote 6 on the grounds that petitioner presented his claim “in some fashion” to the Supreme Court of ^Alabama, and that “[t]he State has never argued that this, presentation was insufficient, as a matter of state law, to preserve the issue.”
This is not a matter that may be stipulated or waived by any of the parties to a case decided on its merits here. Title 28 U. S. C. § 1257 provides that our certiorari jurisdiction extends only to “[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had. . . .”
In Hulbert v. Chicago, 202 U. S. 275, 280 (1906), this Court said:
“It is urged that in the writ of error and petition for citation it is stated that certain rights and privileges were *648claimed under the Constitution of the United States, and that the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois decided against such rights and privileges, and, it is further urged, that the chief justice of the court allow the writ of error. This is not sufficient.”
More recently, in Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 582 (1969), the Court has said:
“Moreover, this Court has stated that when, as here, the highest state court has failed to pass upon a federal question, it will be assumed that the omission was due to want of proper presentation in the state courts unless the aggrieved party in this Court can affirmatively show the contrary.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Thus it is insufficient that the State “has never argued” that a judgment under review is not that of the highest court of the State in which a judgment could be had; it will be assumed that the omission was due to want of proper presentation in the state courts, unless the aggrieved party in this Court can affirmatively show the contrary. Here I am not convinced that such a showing has been made.
Believing, therefore, because of the proceedings in the Supreme Court of Alabama, that we do not have jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 to decide the question which the Court purports to decide, I dissent.