And the exceptions clause deals with appellate jurisdiction, therefore.
Anyway, congress can't add more things to the original jurisdiction category, but it can make that jurisdiction non-exclusive (i.e., by giving jurisdiction to lower federal courts). See § 1251 at the top pf p. 806.
By the way, when SCOTUS takes original jurisdiction, they appoint people to help them out with that (special masters), they don't have a big trial in the SCOTUS room.
And we saw original jurisdiction in McCardle and Yerger: you could petition for habeas directly in SCOTUS.
There's mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction also, and that has changed over time as well. There was a long time when the mandatory category was limited to cases where a state held a federal law unconstitutional or the federal court had invalidated a state law.
And when there was lots of mandatory jurisdiction, there were a lot of simple summary affirmations, but that had some flaws: what precedential value should those have? That went away in 1988. On the other hand, discretionary review undermines the appearance of impartiality in that the selection of cases is ultimately political, at least in part. See Perry, Deciding to Decide.
Is the court flouting the supremacy clause (Art. VI)? Not really, perhaps. VA is interpreting the constitution, and they're coming up with a different understanding of SCOTUS jurisdiction than SCOTUS has. There's nothing explicitly in the constitution saying that SCOTUS has the power to review state court decisions.
On the other hand (low on p. 815), the framers knew that federal questions would arise in state court, and that's why we have the Supremacy Clause. [irony alert: Story is praising parity, but then goes right ahead and assert federal supremacy] And also note that the existence of diversity jurisdiction (bottom of p. 817) implies the notion that there might be state court bias. On the flip side, though, the constitution merely provides for diversity jurisdiction (i.e., it can be granted by congress), it doesn't mandate that those cases be heard by SCOTUS.
P. 818, the most important ¶ on the topic of uniformity. But is non-uniformity really the sort of problem that SCOTUS makes it out to be? It's assumed to be mischievous here, but why have that value judgment? And even if you don't like it, congress can always create lower federal courts (which are optional) and give them jursdiction to hear these cases. Then you'll get SCOTUS-driven uniformity. But it must be the case that you can get to SCOTUS from state court, because what if there aren't even any lower federal courts? Then SCOTUS would only hear the cases where it has original jurisdiction.
"It is the case, and not the court, that gives jurisdiction." (p. 815). How could the judicial power be vested, prior to activation of the lower federal courts, if SCOTUS couldn't take state cases? And note that the language describing federal jurisdiction talks about the types of cases.
Note that this doesn't really square with Hans. There's lots of stuff from the Marshall court that doesn't work with that case. The Marshall court was about strengthening federal power through interpretation.
SCOTUS must avoid advisory opinions, so if the case is decided on state grounds, even though the state court might mis-articulate some point of federal law, they should let it go (i.e., if their decision didn't change the outcome of the case). We take cases to determine outcomes, not to make announcements of law.
Now sometimes state and federal issues get mingled, and so you see citations to federal cases because state constitutions tend to parallel the federal constitution.
Prune Yard: the same language in a state constitution can be interpreted differently than the federal constitution, and the state supreme court is the final interpreter of state law. In particular, federal rights can be narrower than those granted by the states. But how do we know when a state supreme court has acted independently, or whether they are trying to follow the federal lead?
The majority makes this rule: let's presume that there is jurisdiction (p. 847). Stevens (dissent) would presume the opposite. But resolving this issue in favor of more federal jurisdiction doesn't mean that SCOTUS will always take the case: they can always deny cert. And under O'Connor's presumption, they preserve the option.
State judges were kind of mad about the clear statement rule here: they can no longer pretend to hide behind federal law and escape review.
So remember from Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, SCOTUS has the power to review these matters. But can a state retroactively make a SCOTUS decision advisory by deciding to rest on state law alone? No, because when SCOTUS does its analysis, we have a live controversy.
So the question of what the presumption should be (see the controversy between Stevens and O'Connor), federalism looms large: why should SCOTUS care if the states give broader rights to their citizens than the constitution mandates?
If we think about the "independent and adequate state law grounds" doctrine, this is really a question of federalism-- when do we need a federal court safety valve, if we think that the state courts are competent, and things will work best if they handle their own affairs?
In one sense, this decision might be harder on individual rights: it forces state judges who want to have broad interpretations of rights to expose themselves to the electorate-- they have no political cover. Seems kind of bogus: state judges ought to have to pick one-- either face the electorate, or be subject to federal review.
Remember, when talking about federalism, that when we say "the state," there's actually a tri-partite government there, too. State courts and federalism might have different aspects from state legislatures and federalism... don't overlook this subtlety.
And remember that SCOTUS has cert-based power. It can always just deny cert if it wants. But SCOTUS wants to skew doctrine away from denying access to cert, because that might deprive them of cases that they want.
Note that we're only talking about people in state custody, not detainees, etc.
Anyway, we don't allow re-litigation (res judicata). Note that with detainees, there hasn't been a trial yet, and we're using the writ to force a proceeding. With state prisoners, though, we're concerned about state judgments that are so bad, they need to be undone.
But note that SCOTUS will take cases mostly on the basis of policy (i.e., is the question important, and will it apply to a lot of cases, or resolve splits), and not to right wrongs to specific defendants. Because they're an extremely scarce resource, so you can't count on your appeal to SCOTUS being taken.
So that's why we allow you to file a new petition in federal court, basically using the federal district judges as surrogates for SCOTUS. There's not near enough time on the SCOTUS calendar to correct all possible errors in state court. At least, that's the "liberal" position (Brown v. Allen, p. 914-- note that this is actually a very opaque case, and it's hard to find this logic actually in it). Anyway, the idea is that the federal court is doing de novo review on habeas (at least legal questions). So, essentially, we are re-litigating parts of the case.
It's not direct review, because it's not part of the appellate process. And it's intrusive on the state courts.
And on the "conservative" side (and this is Coleman), the states deserve to be left alone, as a rule. We only should grant relief if we find something wrong with them.
Anyway, the modern habeas era began in 1953 (the Warren court) with Brown v. Allen. Federal courts had the power to redetermine the merits of federal constitutional issues decided in state criminal proceedings.
By the way, part of why the detainee cases are so hard is that we're not talking about state law-- we're exploring uncharted territory about the scope of habeas itself, and we don't have decades of doctrine to deal with.
Then, in the 1920s, there was Frank: the real question is whether the state court offered a full and fair opportunity to litigate. So a judgment without such an argument overcomes its effectiveness as surely as a lack of jurisdiction.
Brown v. Allen is the case that is understood as overruling Frank. It expanded the federal courts' review powers further: checking the work of the state courts on constitutional issues.
So here we in a situation talking about independent and adequate state grounds, even though the defendant lost. This is because he lost on a procedural basis: the federal right involved is the 6A right to counsel (here, constitutionally adequate counsel), but he loses because of a failure to file a timely appeal.
There are actually three cases here:
Now the opinion in #2 was just a summary order. There's no clear statement of what it rests on, so Coleman argues that MI v. Long applies, and he qualifies for federal review.
So it's quite a bind. You need to do #2 for exhaustion reasons (so that the state gets a chance to correct its problems, and so that federal resources aren't needlessly consumed), but the state doesn't owe you a decent lawyer at that point. You can't argue that you had a bad lawyer in #1 until #1 is over, but in #2 you don't have the right to a lawyer, so if you have a procedural default, that's your problem, because you don't have a right to counsel at that point. And realistically, we don't want to give people an incentive to screw up #2 intentionally as a means of getting to #3.
So the state court is open to a challenge to #1, but he defaulted. And the rule we get is that you have to show cause for the default, and that there was actual prejudice as a result.
So this is O'Connor again, and she's clearly limiting the effect of the MI v. Long presumption: we don't care about the clear statement exception to the rule, if the presumption never arises in the first place (i.e., fairly appearing to rest primarily on federal law). When there's just a summary order, the presumption never arises.