ADEQUATE STATE GROUNDS

Although most decisions of state courts falling within the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction involve questions of both state and federal law, the Supreme Court limits its review of such cases to the federal questions. Moreover, the Court will not even decide the federal questions raised by such a case if the decision below rests on a ground of state law that is adequate to support the judgment and is independent of any federal issue. This rule applies to grounds based on both state substantive law and state procedures.

In its substantive-ground aspect, the rule not only protects the state courts' authority as the final arbiters of state law but also bolsters the principle forbidding federal courts to give advisory opinions. If the Supreme Court were to review the federal issues presented by a decision resting independently on an adequate state ground, the Court's pronouncements on the federal issues would be advisory only, having no effect on the resolution of the case. It has been assumed that ordinarily no federal policy dictates Supreme Court review of a decision resting on an independent state substantive ground; the winner in the state court typically is the same party who has asserted the federal claim. The point is exemplified by a state court decision invalidating a state statute on both state and federal constitutional grounds. This assumption, however, is a hindrance to Justices bent on contracting the reach of particular constitutional guarantees. In Michigan v. Long (1983) the burger court announced that when the independence of a state court's judgment from federal law is in doubt, the Court will assume that the judgment does not rest independently on state law. To insulate a decision from Supreme Court review now requires a plain statement by the state court of the independence of its state law ground.

Obviously, the highest state court retains considerable control over the reviewability of many of its decisions in the Supreme Court. If the state court chooses to rest decision only on grounds of federal law, as the California court did in regents of the university of california v. bakke (1978), the case is reviewable by the Supreme Court. Correspondingly, the state court can avoid review by the Supreme Court by resting solely on a state-law ground, or by explicitly resting on both a state and a federal ground. In the latter case, the state court's pronouncements on federal law are unreviewable. Recently, several state supreme courts (Alaska, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Oregon) have used these devices to make important contributions to the development of both state and federal constitutional law.

When the state court's decision rests on a procedural ground, the usual effect is to cut off a party's right to claim a federal right, because of some procedural default. The Supreme Court generally insists that federal questions be raised in the state courts according to the dictates of state procedure. However, when the state procedural ground itself violates the federal Constitution (and thus is not "independent" of a federal claim), the Supreme Court will consider the federal issues in the case even though state procedure was not precisely followed. Another exception is exemplified in naacp v. alabama (1964). There the Court reviewed the NAACP's federal claims although the state court had refused to hear them on the transparently phony ground that they had been presented in a brief that departed from the prescribed format. The adequate state ground rule protects judicial federalism, not shamming designed to defeat the claims of federal right.

A similar rule limits the availability of federal habeas corpus relief for state prisoners.

(See fay v. noia; wain-wright v. sykes.)

Kenneth L. Karst
(1986)

Bibliography

Falk, Jerome B., Jr. 1973 The Supreme Court of California, 1971–1972—Foreword: The State Constitution: A More Than "Adequate" Nonfederal Ground. California Law Review 61:273–286.