Federal judiciary

“ The requirement that state remedies be exhausted before relief i sought in the federal courts is grounded primarily upon the respect which federal courts have for the state judicial processes and upon the administrative necessities of the federal judiciary. State courts are duty bound to give full effect to federal constitutional rights and it cannot be assumed that they will be derelict in their duty. ”

“ If this be the case, where can its jurisdiction be more necessary than here?
To what quarter will you look for protection from an infringement on the Constitution, if you will not give the power to the judiciary? There is no other body that can afford such a protection. But the honorable member objects to it, because he says that the officers of the government will be screened from merited punishment by the federal judiciary. The federal sheriff, says he, will go into a poor man's house and beat him, or abuse his family, and the federal court will protect him. Does any gentleman believe this? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulphing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them. ”

“ In any case, the answer to [plaintiffs'] assertions is that such considerations of policy cannot override the constitutional limitation on the authority of the federal judiciary to adjudicate suits against a State. ”

“ Subjecting a state official's tenure of office to the discretion of the federal judiciary makes state officers responsible not to the people of the State but instead to federal judges who, according to the holding here, may oust them from their state office without even so much as a simple notice to the State whose officers they are. ”

“ It cuts sharply into the finality of state criminal processes; it bids fair to place an unnecessary substantial burden of work on the federal courts; and it opens the door to further excursions by the federal judiciary into state judicial domains. ”

“ Yet it is necessary, when a citizen of one state cannot obtain an impartial trial in another, that, for the sake of justice, he should have a right to appeal to the supreme judiciary of the United States to obtain redress ”

“ Second, the requirement of a case or controversy serves to "define the role assigned to the judiciary in a tripartite allocation of power to assure that the federal courts will not intrude into areas committed to the other branches of government." Id. This "dual limitation" found in the requirement of a case or controversy is enforced by what have been termed the justiciability doctrines of Article III, which state the fundamental limits on federal judicial power in our system of government. ”

“ The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other departments, but that the judicial department, also, may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority as well as by another—by the judiciary as well as by the executive, or the legislature. ”

“ The aid of the judges will give more wisdom and firmness to the executive. They will possess a systematic and accurate knowledge of the laws, which the executive cannot be expected always to possess. The law of nations, also, will frequently come into question. Of this the judges alone will have competent information.
Mr. MADISON considered the object of the motion as of great importance to the meditated Constitution. It would be useful to the judiciary department by giving it an additional opportunity of defending itself against legislative encroachments. ”

“ The reason for this differentiation appears in the following statement of Senator Dill, who steered the bill in the Senate:↑ Section 262 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 377, 28 U.S.C.A. § 377, empowers the federal courts 'to issue all writs not specifically provided for by statute, which may be necessary for the exercise of their respective jurisdictions, and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.' This provision appeared in the very first Judiciary Act, 1 Stat. ”

“ Another cause is also effective in lessening the docket of the District Courts. The ordinary lawyer prefers to sue in a State court, when he has the choice, on account of his greater familiarity with the practice there. Many American lawyers have never brought an action in a federal court. Most cases which could be so brought can also be and are brought in a State court.
Congress has thus far maintained for the federal courts the ancient distinction between procedure in law and in equity explained in the preceding chapter. There are those who claim that the reference in Art. ”

“ Congress may avail itself of state courts for the enforcement of federal rights, but it must take the state courts as it finds them, subject to all the conditions for litigation in the state courts that the State has decreed for every other litigant who seeks access to its courts. ”

“ There must be a Supreme Court of Justice, and a system of subordinate courts in every state of the Union, before whom such questions shall be carried, and whose judgment on them, in the last stage of appeal, shall be final. Every state of the Union, and the federal government itself, as well as every functionary of each, must be liable to be sued in those courts for exceeding their powers, or for non-performance of their federal duties, and must in general be obliged to employ those courts as the instrument for enforcing their federal rights. ”

“ Every fact proved with respect to these, in the court below, may be revived in the superior court. But this appellate jurisdiction is to be under the regulations of Congress. What these regulations may be, God only knows.
Their jurisdiction further extends to controversies between citizens of different states. Can we not trust our state courts with the decision of these? If I have a controversy with a man in Maryland,—if a man in Maryland has my bond for a hundred pounds,—are not the state courts competent to try it? ”

“ That the majority has lost sight of the animating principles of federalism is well illustrated by its discussion of the duty of a federal court to determine whether a state court judgment rests on an adequate and independent state ground. According to the majority's formulation, establishing this duty in the federal court serves to diminish the risk that a federal habeas court will review the federal claims of a prisoner in custody pursuant to a judgment that rests upon an adequate and independent state ground. ”

“ The Court has consistently held to the view that it cannot overrule the determination of Congress as to whether federal courts should be allowed jurisdiction, concurrent with the State courts, even where the plaintiff seeks to restrain action of a State agency. ”

“ Here the evidence was obtained by federal agents in violation of the Federal Rules. It therefore involves no entrenchment on principles of federalism to hold that a Federal District Court may enjoin the production of such evidence in a state proceeding, regardless of who seeks to introduce it. The federal courts, rather than the state courts, have the responsibility of assuring that federal law-enforcement officers adhere to the procedures prescribed by the Federal Rules. ”

“ State law cannot define the remedies which a federal court must give simply because a federal court in diversity jurisdiction is available as an alternative tribunal to the State's courts. [3] Contrariwise, a federal court may afford an equitable remedy for a substantive right recognized by a State even though a State court cannot give it. ”

“ To permit a federal trial court to enter a judgment in a case removed without right from a state court where the federal court could not have original jurisdiction of the suit even in the posture it had at the time of judgment, would by the act of the parties work a wrongful extension of federal jurisdiction and give district courts power the Congress has denied them. ”

“ Where a federal court's jurisdiction is properly invoked, and the relevant state constitutional and statutory provisions are plain and unambiguous, there is no necessity for the federal court to abstain pending determination of the state law questions in a state court. ”

“ That the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States, or of any other court to be instituted by the Congress, is not in any case to be increased, enlarged, or extended, by any faction, collusion, or mere suggestion ”

“ We stand to let federal courts lose their command over critical litigation by what we do today. The Court holds that, though the litigant goes to the state court involuntarily, he loses his right to return to the federal court if he submits the local law question and the constitutional questions to the state tribunal without reserving his right to return to the federal forum for a final adjudication. It will often be necessary to submit the local law question in light of the constitutional questions. ”

“ Congress created the right of action. It might have provided that the right shall be enforceable only in a federal court. It might have provided that state courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction only of those cases which, by the applicable federal law, could, under the same circumstances, have been commenced in a federal court for the particular state. ”

“ The jurisdiction of these courts is established for some purposes with which the state courts have nothing to do, and the Constitution takes no power from the state courts which they now have. They will have the same business which they have now, and if so, they will have enough to employ their time. We know that the gentlemen who preside in our superior courts have more business than they can determine. Their complicated jurisdiction, and the great extent of country, occasions them a vast deal of business. ”

“ The state court held that it had jurisdiction; that 'the right of the parties to maintain the action is beyond question'. [2] The state court thus determined in substance that members of the legislature had standing to seek, and the court had jurisdiction to grant, mandamus to compel a proper record of legislative action. Had the questions been solely state questions, the matter would have ended there. But the questions raised in the instant case arose under the Federal Constitution and these questions were entertained and decided by the state court. ”

“ As it is to be presumed that inferior tribunals will be constituted, there will be no occasion for going always to the Supreme Court, even in cases where the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. ”