Dixon v. Duffy (344 U.S. 143)/Dissent Jackson

by Robert H. Jackson

United States Supreme Court

344 U.S. 143

Dixon  v.  Duffy

 Argued: Oct. 16, 1952. --- Decided: Dec 8, 1952

Mr. Justice JACKSON, dissenting.

Both the wisdom and the legality of this policy toward the highest court of a state appear dubious to me. What we are doing, in essence, is to vacate a state court judgment, not because it is found to be inconsistent with federal law, but because the state court has not told us, with an acceptable degree of formality, what reasons led to rendering it.

This Court has blazed the way for the practice of dispensing with opinions in denying petitions for discretionary orders, such as certiorari and motions for leave to file petitions for habeas corpus. Unless we mean to impose on state courts a burden we are unwilling to assume ourselves, we should not vacate this state judgment. Doubt of our jurisdiction is no justification for exercising it; quite the contrary is the rule.

Those few of the cases cited by the Court in which this procedure was followed are not persuasive. There was no examination of the Court's power to vacate, and the results do not encourage its repetition. In two cases, the judgment vacated was simply reinstated by the State Supreme Court and the litigants were never heard from again. Compare State of Minnesota v. National Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 60 S.Ct. 676, 84 L.Ed. 920; with National Tea Co. v. State, 208 Minn. 607, 294 N.W. 230; State Tax Comm. v. Van Cott, 306 U.S. 511, 59 S.Ct. 605, 83 L.Ed. 950, with Van Cott v. State Tax Comm., 98 Utah 264, 96 P.2d 740. In another instance, however, we pursued a less drastic course; we stayed our own hand while petitioner applied to the state court for clarification of its grounds of decision. Compare Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U.S. 117, 65 S.Ct. 459, 89 L.Ed. 789, with Id., 325 U.S. 77, 65 S.Ct. 954, 89 L.Ed. 1483.

In this case, the Supreme Court of California, having promptly and officially, albeit informally, advised us of its ground of decision, feels itself without power to make a formal order therein. One reason is that it has long since closed the case with a final determination, and another is that we, by grant of certiorari, have lifted the case, record and all, out of that court. I cannot say that it is unreasonable for a state court to refrain from entering formal orders in a case which is no longer pending before it.

The plain truth of the matter is that the grant of certiorari was an irresponsible exercise of our own power without requiring or considering adequate jurisdictional information. The California Supreme Court has a perfect right to deny an application for habeas corpus to review a contention that under state practice could have, and should have, been urged on appeal. We are without power to require states to allow retrial de novo via habeas corpus of issues tried and open to review on the original record. It seems to me probable that this is the ground the California Supreme Court has taken, not, as this Court intimates, for this particular case, but as a general rule of state law, and I think a wise and proper one. It probably will reaffirm by reinstating the judgment we upset today. I think dismissal of our own writ of certiorari on the candid admission that it was improvidently granted is our wise and lawful course.

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