Supreme Court of Missouri

“ We find no merit in the contention that a federal constitutional right was violated because of the refusal to transfer the cause from the division of the Supreme Court of Missouri, which heard it, to the court en banc. ”

“ The opinion of the Supreme Court of Missouri is not unequivocal. It could hardly, however, have assumed the law of Colorado to be that reviver proceedings create a new judgment, for it chiefly relied upon a decision of its own according full recognition to Roche v. McDonald and other cases invoking the principle that the forum cannot look behind a judgment brought there for enforcement. ”

“ The majority opinion of the Supreme Court of Missouri further dwells upon a significance thought to attach to the purpose of Congress in repealing section 3 of the statute of 1888 as amended by the statute of 1895. ”

“ A judge is disqualified from acting as a judicial officer while there is pending an indictment or information charging him in any court in the United States with a crime punishable as a felony under the laws of Missouri or the United States, or a recommendation to the supreme court by the commission for his removal, or retirement, or after articles of impeachment have been voted by the house of representatives. ”

“ It certainly has not been said or decided in the Supreme Court of Missouri, that a mere claim, without any shadow of right, could be enforced by Congress to the prejudice of an existing right and title-particularly such a right and title as that vested in the plaintiff in error. ”

“ It has been repeatedly held by the Supreme Court of Missouri, in decisions approved and followed uniformly by this court, that such repeal is not the direct and immediate result of the Constitution itself ”

“ Missouri denies to some of its citizens the equal protection of the laws, by forbidding that access to the department administering them, which other citizens enjoy.
The right of an unrestricted appeal to the Supreme Court, granted to those residing in one hundred and nine counties of the State, is, in like cases, withheld from those residing in either of four other counties, or in the city of Saint Louis. ”

“ The gentlemen who, at different times,, have held the positions of judges of the district and circuit courts in Missouri, and the associate justices of the United States Supreme Court assigned to the Missouri Circuit, have all been men of eminent ability and learning and will compare favorably with any judges of other Federal courts throughout the country, both as to legal learning and integrity of character. ”

“ Since then, not only individuals but States have been possessed with a dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery, whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures whose inevitable consequence must be the overthrow and destruction of our Government. Under such circumstances, it does not behoove the State of Missouri to show the least countenance to any measure which might gratify this spirit. She is willing to assume her full responsibility for the existence of slavery within her limits, nor does she seek to share or divide it with others. ”

“ The question thus arises whether we have jurisdiction under § 237 (b) of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C.A. § 344 (b) , which restricts our authority to review decisions of state courts to those causes wherein a judgment has been rendered 'by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had'.
Section 1 of the 1890 amendments to Article VI of the Missouri constitution provides that the Supreme Court shall consist of seven judges and 'shall be divided into two divisions', one of four and the other of three judges. ”

“ From this prohibition, the territory now constituting the State of Missouri was excepted; which exception to the stipulation gave it the designation of a compromise.
The first question presented on this act is, whether Congress had power to make such compromise. For, if power was wanting, then no freedom could be acquired by the defendant under the act.
That Congress has no authority to pass laws and bind men's rights beyond the powers conferred by the Constitution, is not open to controversy. ”

“ If the Missouri Supreme Court enforces its requirement that an accused make manifest his need for appointed counsel and if Missouri enforces this requirement even with procedural strictness against those convicted of felonies years after their sentence, it is not for us to be hypercritical in denying to the highest tribunal of a State what it may conceive to be its duty to see to it that the great writ of habeas corpus is not abused [9] and that the administration of criminal justice is not needlessly weakened by astute devices. ”

“ And authority for this position is supposed to be found in the answers given by the judges of the Supreme Court of Missouri, in November, 1865, to certain questions propounded by the governor under a provision of the constitution authorizing him to take their opinion on important questions of constitutional law. ”

“ Because there is no evidence that Missouri designed its protocol to inflict pain on anyone, let alone Russell Bucklew, I would end the inquiry there. Nonetheless, I join the Court’s opinion in full because it correctly explains why Bucklew’s claim fails even under the Court’s precedents. ”

“ Taxpayers may bring actions for interpretations of limitations. Notwithstanding other provisions of this constitution or other law, any taxpayer of the state, county, or other political subdivision shall have standing to bring suit in a circuit court of proper venue and additionally, when the state is involved, in the Missouri supreme court, to enforce the provisions of sections 16 through 22, inclusive, of this article and, if the suit is sustained, shall receive from the applicable unit of government his costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees incurred in maintaining such suit. ”

“ Missouri has a statute which requires a court on request to assign counsel to a person unable to employ one and who is charged with a felony. Rev.Stat.1939, § 4003, Mo.R.S.A. The Missouri Supreme Court did not indicate the reasons for its denial of the petition beyond the statement that the petition failed to state a cause of action. Whatever the grounds of that decision it is binding on us insofar as state law is concerned. ”

“ Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the States. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State. To meet and overthrow that dynasty is the work before all those who would prevent that consummation. ”

“ The plaintiffs in Glossip undertook an across-the-board attack against the use of a particular execution method, which they maintained violated the Eighth Amendment categorically. In this case, by contrast, Bucklew does not attack Missouri’s lethal injection protocol categorically, or even in respect to any execution other than his own. Instead, he maintains that he is special; that he suffers from a nearly unique illness; and that, by virtue of that illness, Missouri’s execution method will be excruciatingly painful for him even though it would not affect others in the same way. ”

“ Given Turner, appellants necessarily have standing to appeal the Missouri Supreme Court's determination that, even if Missouri law requires that members of the board of freeholders own real property, the Equal Protection Clause is inapplicable. ”

“ Allowing the state 15 peremptory challenges in capital cases, tried in cities containing a population of over 100,000 inhabitants, is simply providing against the difficulty of securing, in such cases, an impartial jury in cities of that size, which does not exist in other portions of the state. So far from defeating, it may furnish the necessary means of giving, that equal protection of its laws to all persons, which that amendment declares shall not be denied to any one within its jurisdiction.
We see nothing in the legislation of Missouri which is repugnant to that amendment. ”

“ Even if Missouri, by reason of its control of its own courts, might refuse to open them to such a case, it does not follow that another state may close Missouri's courts to one with a federal cause of action. If Missouri elects to entertain the case, the courts of no other state can obstruct or prevent its exercise of jurisdiction as conferred by the federal statute or its right to obtain evidence and to distribute the proceeds, if any, in accordance with the Federal Employers' Liability Act. ”

“ If the determination by the Missouri court can reasonably be justified on failure to comply with a requirement of Missouri law, then it must be so justified. And the record here plainly allows the inference that the petitioner did not meet the procedural requirements of Missouri law for relief by habeas corpus. If a decision of a state court can rest on a state ground, it is our duty to conclude that it does so rest; it is our duty not to assume that the state court rejected a claim under the United States Constitution. ”

“ As most of the laws of the United States are carried out within the States and as many of them deal with matters which in the silence of such laws the State might regulate, such general grounds are not enough to support Missouri's claim. ”

“ Whenever prosecutions arise under these provisions, there will, doubtless, be granted, in Missouri, to the accused, all these guarantees of constitutional liberty. The State cannot deny them to one of its citizens without denying them to all; and to suppose a people so lost to common sense as to deprive themselves, voluntarily, of these great and essential rights, necessary to a condition of freedom, is to suppose them incapable of self-government. ”