Hugo Black

“ In Stefanelli we affirmed the refusal of a federal district court to suppress the use in a pending state proscution of evidence that the petitioners alleged had been obtained in an unlawful search. Our ruling there is clearly applicable to the facts before us:
'We hold that the federal courts should refuse to intervene in State criminal proceedins to suppress the use of evidence even when claimed to have been secured by unlawful search and seizure.' 342 U.S., at 120, 72 S.Ct., at 120, 96 L.Ed. 138. ”

“ It is difficult to imagine a more disruptive interference with the operation of the state criminal process short of an injunction against all state proceedings. Even the three-judge court recognized that its judgment would effectively stifle the then-pending state criminal prosecution.
'In view of our holding that the arrests and seizures in these cases are invalid for want of a prior adversary judicial determination of obscenity, which holding requires suppression and return of the seized materials, the prosecutions should be effectively terminated.' 304 F.Supp., at 670. ”

“ The fact that the clerk of the District Court merged these orders into one judgment does not confer jurisdiction upon this Court. In the first place, our jurisdiction cannot be made to turn on an inadvertent error of a court clerk. Second, the jurisdictional statute by its own terms grants a direct appeal from 'an order granting or denying' an injunction. 28 U.S.C. § 1253. (Emphasis added.) Since the order entered by the three-judge court omits any reference to declaratory relief, the discussion of such relief in the court's opinion is dictum. ”