Federal Review, Finalty of State Court Decisions, and a Proposal for a National Court of Appeals-A State Judge's Solution to a Continuing Problem
James Duke Cameron, Federal Review, Finalty of State Court Decisions, and a Proposal for a National Court of Appeals-A State Judge's
Solution to a Continuing Problem
Federal Review, Finalty of State Court Decisions, and a Proposal for a National Court of Appeals-A State Judge's Solution to a Continuing Problem
James Duke Cameron 0
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Federal Review, Finality of State Court
Decisions, and a Proposal for a National Court
of Appeals-A State Judge's Solution t o a
Continuing Problem
James Duke Cameron*
Under the federal supremacy clause,' not only must state
courts apply federal law where appropriate, but they are subject
to review by the federal courts when federal law is applied
improperly. Although state judges may disagree with particular
decisions of the federal courts, state judges should have no quarrel
with federal review of state court decisions involving federal
questions. If there is to be any semblance of uniformity in the
application of federal constitutional provisions by the state
courts, it is inevitable, if not desirable, that federal courts, and
particularly the United States Supreme Court, have the last
word. Unfortunately, because of the manner in which federal
review of state court decisions is exercised, state cases involving
federal constitutional questions are no longer final, and excessive
delay is commonplace, particularly in criminal cases. The
resulting confusion and delay in the application of federal law by the
state courts have detracted from the prestige of the state courts
and eroded the force and effect of state court decisions.
Assurning that the achievement of consistency, predictability, and
reasonably prompt finality in state court decisions can be
compati* Justice, Arizona Supreme Court. A.B., 1950, University of California, Berkeley;
J.D., 1954, University of Arizona College of Law.
I am indebted to Mack Jones, A.B., 1977, Northwestern University; J.D., 1980,
University of Arizona College of Law, for his help and assistance. I wish also to thank Judge
Clement Haynsworth of the Third Circuit, Dean Erwin Griswold, and John Frank
Esquire for reading the initial draft of this Article and for their kind suggestions. The
subject matter of this paper has been discussed previously in the American Bar Association
Journal. Cameron, National Court of State Appeals: A View from the States, 65
A.B.A.J. 709 (1979). Special acknowledgment is made to Daniel J. Meador, James
Monroe Professor of Law, University of Virginia, for his critical evaluation and helpful
suggestions.
. 1. U.S. CONST.art. VI, c1. 2.
ble with federal review, this Article will discuss a proposed
solution which, although designed to benefit the state judicial
systems, would also assist the federal judicial system.
When we became a nation, routine review by the federal
courts of state court decisions was not contemplated, and there
is some question whether the framers of the Constitution
envisioned the establishment of federal trial courts at all, leaving to
the state trial courts the responsibility of deciding federal
questions in a trial setting. The Judiciary Act of 1789,' however,
created thirteen federal district courts, divided into three c i r c ~ i t s . ~
The resulting system was simple enough: state cases were tried
in state courts, and federal cases, what few there were, were
tried in federal courts. Our population was agrarian and small,
commerce among the new states was limited, and the right to
travel was a little-used privilege under our federal Constitution.
That the law in one state was different from the law of a sister
state was of little concern to the citizens or the courts. Professor
Daniel Meador has commented:
In the first decade of its existence, the Supreme Court
reviewed only seven state court decisions, and for the next
several decades it reviewed about an average of one state
judgment a year. The state judges, by virtue of the Federal
Supremacy Clause, were compelled to apply federal law
whenever it came into play, but federal law was so skimpy in the
early decades that this posed little or no added burden on the
state judges.'
This pattern began to change during the Reconstruction
period that followed the War Between the States. In 1867 Congress
gave federal courts jurisdiction over petitions for writs of habeas
corpus filed by state prisoners,' and in 1868 ratification of the
fourteenth amendment to the Constitution imposed due process
and equal protection upon the states as a matter of federal law.
In 1908 the Supreme Court, in Ex parte Y o ~ n gh,e~ld that
federal courts could enjoin state officials from conduct that
violated the United States Constitution. This gave the federal
courts substantial p (...truncated)