15. If petitioned to do so, may the U.S. Supreme Court exercise jurisdiction to review the state court decision?

The U.S. Supreme Court may determine whether a state court has reached a decision that is not in conformity with the Constitution, but it may not review state court decisions that merely adjudicate questions of state law because the Court's review of state court judgments is limited to questions of federal law.

Even if there is a federal question in the state court case, the Court may not review it if there is an «independent and adequate» state ground for the state court's decision. That is, if the same result would be reached even had the state court made a different decision on the federal question, the Court may not decide the case. This is because its opinion would in effect be an «advisory» one.

The state court may hold that a state statute violates both state and federal constitutional provisions. The holding that the state constitution is violated may be achieved in one of two ways: (i) the state court may have independently interpreted the state constitutional provision, without relying directly on federal cases construing the federal constitutional provision; or (ii) the state court may have interpreted the state constitutional provision as being co-extensive with the comparable federal constitutional provision, and then attempted to follow the relevant federal case law. In that case, the Court may find that an independent and adequate state ground really did not exist, allowing the Court to review it.

A is correct. The Court does not have appellate jurisdiction over a decision by the highest court of a state when that decision is supported by independent and adequate state law grounds. In this case, the state's highest court found that the law «violated the due process provisions of both the U.S. and the state constitutions» (emphasis added). There is no evidence that the state court analyzed the two constitutional provisions co-extensively, but rather, found separate violations of each. Even if the Court were to reverse the state court's ruling on the federal constitutional issue, the result in the case would not change because the law still violated the state constitution. As such, the state court's decision is adequate and independent of any consideration of the federal constitutional claim and the decision is not reviewable.

B is incorrect. This answer reaches the correct answer with the wrong reasoning. Although it is true that the U.S. Supreme Court may not review this case, it is not because the state court determined the constitutionality of federal law, but because there were independent and adequate state law grounds supporting the decision.

C is incorrect. This is a misstatement of the law. The U.S. Supreme Court does not have appellate jurisdiction over any decision of the highest court of a state involving the interpretation of federal law. Specifically, it does not have appellate jurisdiction when that decision is supported by state law grounds that are: (i) independent of federal law; and (ii) adequate to sustain the result in the case.

D is incorrect. The Court does not have appellate jurisdiction over any decisions that find state laws in violation of the federal Constitution. Specifically, it does not have jurisdiction over decision of a state supreme court if there are independent and adequate state law grounds supporting the decision.