Felix Frankfurter

“ That being so, the state court's constitutional discussion takes on, for me, a vital significance in connection with its procedural holding under state law, namely, that affirmance of petitioner's conviction was rested on this state ground only after the Indiana court, displaying a meticulous concern that state procedural requirements should not be allowed to work a 'miscarriage of justice,' particularly in view of 'the finality of the sentence,' had satisfied itself that petitioner's constitutional contentions were untenable. ”

“ Concededly, if a state court rests a decision on both an adequate state ground and a federal ground, this Court is without jurisdiction to review the superfluous federal ground. For while state courts are subject to the Supremacy Clause of the United States Consitu tion (Art. VI, cl. 2) , they are so subject only if that Clause becomes operative, and they need not pass on a federal issue if a relevant rule of state law can dispose of the litigation. ”

“ It concerns the relation of the United States and the courts of the United States to the States and the courts of the States. The federal judiciary has no power to sit in judgment upon a determination of a state court unless it is found that it must rest on disposition of a claim under federal law. This is so whether a state adjudication comes directly under review in this Court or reaches us by way of the limited scope of habeas corpus jurisdiction originating in a District Court. ”

“ Judicial power is not so restrictively distributed in other federalisms comparable to ours. Neither the Canadian Supreme Court nor the Australian High Court is restricted to reviewing Dominion and Commonwealth issues respectively. ”

“ That is the mode which my brother HARLAN has explicated, and it is entirely consistent with the governing considerations which I have tried to set forth for me also to join, as I do join, his dissenting opinion.
Mr. Justice HARLAN, whom Mr. Justice FRANKFURTER, Mr. Justice CLARK, and Mr. Justice WHITTAKER join, dissenting. ”

“ That court discussed the claim under the Fourteenth Amendment rather summarily, after it had dealt extensively with the problem of local law. If the Indiana court's opinion had stopped with its lengthy discussion of the local law and had not gone on to consider the federal issue, prefacing its consideration with the introductory sentence that ' (o) ur decision on the point under examination makes it unnecessary for us to consider the other contentions of the appellant ”