-
20. The Brown Opinions
- NYU Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
The Brown Opinions The Court’s published decision dealt with two procedural topics . First, rejecting “the position of the Fourth Circuit,” it held 5–4 that a previous denial of certiorari was to be given no substantive effect by the judge ruling on a later federal habeas corpus petition.1 Second, reiterating law whose roots we have traced to Frank, it ruled that in determining whether a state conviction violated the Constitution a federal habeas corpus court should, after consideration of the state court record, decide what further factual inquiries were needed in order to discharge responsibly its duty to make an independent determination of federal law, a decision that would be given a large measure of deference on appeal.2 While contained in two opinions (reflecting the inability of Justices Reed and Frankfurter to agree upon a single draft) all the Justices but Jackson were in accord on this second set of procedural issues. Justice Frankfurter’s published discussion of these questions tracked his earlier internal writing,3 both on the matter of the record for federal habeas corpus adjudication4 and in elaborating upon the established distinctions between earlier state rulings on: (a) questions of historical fact (which the federal judge could accept as binding “[u]nless a vital flaw be found in the process of ascertaining such facts”), (b) “questions of law [which] cannot, under the habeas corpus statute, be accepted as binding,” since “[i]t is precisely these questions that the federal judge is commanded to decide,” and (c) “mixed questions or the application of constitutional principles to the facts as found,” where “the duty of adjudication [rests] with the federal judge,” and “[t]he State court cannot have the last say when it, though on fair consideration and what procedurally may be deemed fairness, may have misconceived a federal constitutional right.”5 Justice Reed’s opinion, although more oblique, agreed.6 20 130 That there was no real disagreement between Justices Reed and Frankfurter respecting hearings—so that indeed “[t]he views of the Court on these questions may thus be drawn from the two opinions jointly”7 —is shown by the fact that no Justice believed that the District Courts in the cases at hand had been required to conduct de novo review of the factual findings of the state courts regarding whether confessions had been coerced or a petitioner was sane. Thus, Brown not only made no new law on the scope of review, but also did not do so on the issue of when hearings were mandatory. At the same time, Justice Reed went out of his way to approve of the decision of the Speller District Court to hold a hearing, writing: This was in its discretion. Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86; Darr v. Burford, 339 U.S. 214, cases which establish the power of federal district courts to protect the constitutional rights of state prisoners after the exhaustion of state remedies. It better enabled that court to determine whether any violation of the Fourteenth Amendment occurred.8 In short, Justice Frankfurter was accurate in reporting: The issue of the significance of the denial of certiorari raises a sharp division in the Court. This is not so as to the bearing of the proceedings in the State courts upon the disposition of the application for a writ of habeas corpus in the Federal District Courts.9 On the merits of the cases decided in the Brown opinion,10 on the other hand, the Justices were sharply at odds. Justice Reed wrote for himself and Justices Vinson, Minton, Burton, Clark, and Jackson in denying all relief. Justice Black’s dissent was joined by Justice Douglas, while Justice Frankfurter ’s was joined by those two Justices. In Brown, the Court focused principally on the challenge to the jury selection procedures and held that the use of tax lists as the basis of selection for grand and petit jurors was not unconstitutionally racially discriminatory , notwithstanding the racially unequal distribution of wealth, the resulting disparate impact on the composition of the jury pool, and North Carolina ’s history of unconstitutional discrimination in jury selection.11 Nor did the Court’s terse review of the record respecting the confession persuade it that the statement had been involuntary.12 Both dissents discussed primarily the jury selection issue. (This is probably because even under the procedural formulations of Justices Frankfurter13 and Black,14 the confession issue was one on which the district court might properly have deferred...