Melville Fuller

“ Yet no definite issue as to the validity of that statute was distinctly deducible from the record, no decision in favor of its validity appeared therefrom, and the judgment might have rested on grounds not involving its validity.
Whether the supreme court of Florida, if it sustained the decree of the circuit court in denying the petition on either of the grounds set up in defense, committed error cognizable here, or whether the act referred to was applied, as asserted, in contravention of the Constitution of the United States, we are not called on to consider ”