Also known as: adequate state grounds · adequate and independent state ground · adequate and independent state grounds · adequate and independent state grounds doctrine
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A state-law basis for a judgment that is sufficient by itself to support the result reached. The basis must stand apart from federal law so that a federal court decision on the federal question would not alter the outcome.
Horizon Wireless challenged a state fine for data throttling. The state supreme court upheld the fine after discussing both the state free-speech clause and federal speech doctrines in a single analysis without declaring that state law alone controlled. The U.S. Supreme Court presumes jurisdiction because the opinion supplies no clear statement of an independent state ground.
Adrian Aguilar raised a federal constitutional objection to evidence admitted at trial. The state appellate court rejected the claim solely because Aguilar failed to comply with a state contemporaneous-objection rule. A federal habeas court treats the procedural default as an adequate state ground that blocks merits review.
In March 1973, three adult male respondents and a sixteen-year-old girl were traveling in a Chevrolet on the New York State Thruway when the car was stopped for speeding. Police observed two loaded handguns weighing approximately six pounds in an open handbag on the front floor or seat beside the girl, who admitted the bag belonged to her. A machinegun and heroin were discovered in the trunk after it was pried open. The four were tried together in Ulster County Court for possession of the handguns and trunk items. The trial judge instructed the jury regarding the statutory presumption that the presence of firearms in the automobile constituted evidence of possession by all occupants. The jury found the three adult males guilty of handgun possession but acquitted everyone of the trunk charges. The convictions were affirmed by the Appellate Division without opinion. The New York Court of Appeals also affirmed. The respondents sought federal habeas corpus relief in the Southern District of New York. The district court granted the writ on the ground that the presumption could not support the convictions on these facts. The Second Circuit affirmed the grant of the writ, though on the basis that the statute was unconstitutional on its face. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the procedural and substantive issues raised by the lower federal courts' decisions.
View caseArthur Abrams contested personal jurisdiction in a state probate proceeding. The state high court dismissed the action after citing both state long-arm precedents and federal due-process standards without separating the two analyses. The U.S. Supreme Court treats the decision as resting on federal law absent an express independent state ground.
In 1935 Dora Browning Donner, then a domiciliary of Pennsylvania, executed a trust instrument in Delaware naming the Wilmington Trust Company as trustee. The corpus consisted of securities. Mrs. Donner reserved the income for life and retained a power of appointment over the remainder exercisable by inter vivos deed or will. She also retained the rights to amend, alter, or revoke the agreement, to change the trustee, and to require the consent of a trust advisor she appointed for sales of assets, investments, and participation in reorganizations. In 1944 Mrs. Donner became domiciled in Florida and remained there until her death in 1952. On December 3, 1949, while in Florida, she executed both her will and an inter vivos power of appointment. The appointment directed $200,000 to each of two trusts benefiting her grandchildren Donner Hanson and Joseph Donner Winsor, with the balance appointed to her executrix. Mrs. Donner died on November 20, 1952. Her will was admitted to probate in Florida, naming Elizabeth Donner Hanson as executrix. Fourteen months after the death, residuary legatees Katherine N. R. Denckla and Dorothy B. R. Stewart petitioned a Florida chancery court for a declaratory judgment concerning property passing under the residuary clause. Personal service was made on the executrix and beneficiaries. Nonresident defendants including the Wilmington Trust Company and the Delaware Trust Company were served by ordinary mail and local publication under Florida statutes. The Delaware trustee did not appear. After the Florida suit began, the executrix filed a declaratory judgment action in Delaware to determine rights to the trust assets held there. All trust companies and most beneficiaries appeared in the Delaware proceeding. The Florida chancellor initially ruled he lacked jurisdiction over the nonresident trustees because no personal service had been made and the trust corpus was outside Florida. He proceeded as to appearing parties and held the power of appointment testamentary and void under Florida law, so that the $400,000 passed under the residuary clause. The Delaware Chancellor ruled the trust and appointment valid under Delaware law and that the corpus had been properly paid to the appointees. The Florida Supreme Court reversed the jurisdictional ruling, held Florida law applied, and affirmed that the trust was invalid and the appointment ineffective. The Delaware Supreme Court affirmed its own judgment and refused to accord full faith and credit to the Florida decree. The United States Supreme Court postponed the question of jurisdiction in the Florida appeal and granted certiorari to the Delaware Supreme Court. Both state supreme court judgments are before the Court.
View caseAngela Acosta sought post-conviction relief based on newly discovered evidence. The state court denied relief under a state rule requiring claims to be raised within a fixed time after finality. The adequate state ground prevents federal habeas review even though the underlying claim implicates federal constitutional rights.
In late September 1981, the body of Texas Department of Public Safety Officer David Rucker was found beside his patrol car on a highway near Los Fresnos, Texas. At about the same time, Los Fresnos Police Officer Enrique Carrisalez stopped a speeding vehicle and was shot by the driver, dying nine days later. Petitioner Leonel Torres Herrera was arrested a few days after the shootings and charged with the capital murders of both officers. He was tried in January 1982, convicted of Carrisalez's capital murder, and sentenced to death; he pleaded guilty to Rucker's murder in July 1982. At Herrera's trial for Carrisalez's murder, eyewitness Enrique Hernandez identified him as the shooter from the patrol car. A declaration by the dying Carrisalez to the same effect was admitted. The speeding car was registered to Herrera's live-in girlfriend, and Herrera had keys to it in his pocket when arrested. Herrera's Social Security card was found at Rucker's scene. Blood spatters of type A, matching Rucker but not Herrera's type O, were found on the car and on Herrera's jeans and wallet. A handwritten letter found on Herrera when arrested strongly implied he had killed Rucker. Herrera's conviction was affirmed on direct appeal by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1984, and the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari. His state habeas application was denied. A federal habeas petition challenging the identifications was denied by the Fifth Circuit in 1990, with certiorari denied by the Supreme Court. In 1990, Herrera filed a second state habeas petition raising a claim of actual innocence supported by affidavits from attorney Hector Villarreal and former cellmate Juan Franco Palacious, both stating that Herrera's brother Raul Herrera Sr., who died in 1984, had confessed to committing the murders. The state courts denied relief. In February 1992, Herrera filed his second federal habeas petition in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, presenting those affidavits plus additional ones from Raul Herrera Jr. and Jose Ybarra Jr. claiming Raul Sr. had confessed and that Raul Jr. had witnessed the shootings. The District Court dismissed most claims as an abuse of the writ but granted a stay of execution to permit Herrera to present his actual innocence claim in state court. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the stay, holding that a claim of actual innocence without an accompanying constitutional violation is not cognizable on federal habeas corpus. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseAlexis Archer appealed a criminal conviction but could not afford the required transcript. The state court dismissed the appeal for failure to comply with a state rule mandating prepayment. The dismissal rests on an adequate state ground that precludes Supreme Court review of the federal equal-protection claim.
Griffin and Crenshaw were tried together and convicted of armed robbery in the Criminal Court of Cook County, Illinois. Immediately after their conviction, they filed a motion in the trial court asking that a certified copy of the entire record, including a stenographic transcript of the proceedings, be furnished to them without cost. They alleged that they were poor persons with no means of paying the necessary fees to acquire the transcript and court records needed to prosecute an appeal. These allegations were not denied. Under Illinois law, full direct appellate review of alleged errors by a writ of error requires the defendant to furnish the appellate court with a bill of exceptions or report of proceedings at the trial certified by the trial judge. As Illinois concedes, it is sometimes impossible to prepare such bills of exceptions or reports without a stenographic transcript of the trial proceedings. Indigent defendants sentenced to death are provided with a free transcript at the expense of the county where convicted. In all other criminal cases, defendants needing a transcript, whether indigent or not, must themselves buy it. The trial court denied the motion without a hearing. Griffin and Crenshaw then filed a petition under the Illinois Post-Conviction Hearing Act. Only questions arising under the Illinois or Federal Constitution may be raised in proceedings under this Act. A companion state act provides that indigent petitioners under the Post-Conviction Act may, under some circumstances, obtain a free transcript. The effect is that indigents may obtain a free transcript to obtain appellate review of constitutional questions but not of other alleged trial errors such as admissibility and sufficiency of evidence. In their Post-Conviction proceeding, petitioners alleged that there were manifest nonconstitutional errors in the trial which entitled them to have their convictions set aside on appeal. The only impediment to full appellate review was their lack of funds to buy a transcript. These allegations have not been denied. This petition, like the first, was dismissed without hearing any evidence. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal solely on the ground that the charges raised no substantial state or federal constitutional questions. Counsel for Illinois concedes that these petitioners needed a transcript in order to get adequate appellate review of their alleged trial errors. There is no contention that petitioners were dilatory in their efforts to get appellate review, or that the Illinois Supreme Court denied review on the ground that the allegations of trial error were insufficient. We must therefore assume for purposes of this decision that errors were committed in the trial which would merit reversal. The petitioners could not get appellate review of those errors solely because they were too poor to buy a stenographic transcript. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseAriana Azizi invoked her right to remain silent during custodial interrogation. The state court admitted later statements after applying a state evidentiary rule on re-initiation of questioning. Because the ruling rests on that independent state ground, the U.S. Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction to review the federal self-incrimination claim.
On April 8, 1971, Richard Bert Mosley was arrested in Detroit, Michigan, in connection with robberies at the Blue Goose Bar and the White Tower Restaurant. Detective James Cowie of the Armed Robbery Section advised Mosley of his Miranda rights, and Mosley read and signed a notification form. Cowie questioned Mosley about the White Tower Restaurant robbery for approximately twenty minutes, during which Mosley stated he did not want to answer any questions about the robberies. Cowie immediately ceased the interrogation, and Mosley was taken to a ninth-floor cell block. Shortly after 6 p.m. the same day, Detective Hill of the Homicide Bureau brought Mosley to the fifth-floor Homicide Bureau office to question him about the January 9, 1971, fatal shooting of Leroy Williams outside the 101 Ranch Bar. Hill advised Mosley of his Miranda rights, which Mosley read silently and aloud before signing the form. Mosley initially denied involvement, but after Hill told him that Anthony Smith had confessed and named Mosley as the shooter, Mosley made an incriminating statement implicating himself in the homicide. The second interrogation lasted approximately fifteen minutes. Mosley was charged with first-degree murder. Before trial he moved to suppress the incriminating statement on the ground that it had been obtained in violation of his Miranda rights because questioning had resumed after he declined to answer questions about the robberies. The trial court denied the motion after an evidentiary hearing, the statement was introduced at trial, and the jury convicted Mosley of first-degree murder, imposing a mandatory life sentence. On appeal the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed the conviction, holding that the second interrogation constituted a per se violation of Miranda. The Michigan Supreme Court denied further appeal. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the proper interpretation of Miranda with respect to the resumption of questioning after a person in custody has exercised the right to remain silent.
View caseThe Court presumes jurisdiction when the state opinion does not clearly and expressly state that the judgment rests on state-law grounds independent of federal law. The state court must supply an unambiguous declaration that its holding is supported by adequate and independent state grounds before the presumption is overcome.
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The Supreme Court treats the decision as resting on federal law and exercises appellate jurisdiction. A blended discussion that never declares the state clause alone sufficient fails the clear-statement requirement and keeps the case within federal review.
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No. A state court must clearly and expressly rely on state law as a separate basis for its decision. Simply referencing state provisions while treating them as coextensive with federal law does not satisfy the independence requirement.
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State courts bear the burden of making independence explicit. Without a plain statement that the judgment rests on state law independent of federal law, the Supreme Court will presume jurisdiction and proceed to the merits of the federal question.
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…rules for determining the primacy of state law, see, e. g. , Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins , 304 U. S. 64 (1938), the doctrine of adequate and independent state grounds, see, e. g. , Murdock v. Memphis , 20 Wall. 590 (1875); Michigan v. Long , 463 U. S. 1032 (1983), the whole jurisprudence of pre-emption, see, e. g. , Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. ,…