When Alabama's state Supreme Court decided to defiantly step into the marriage equality issue in the state, it was a bit surprising to most folks. It has also caused quite a bit of chaos in the state with regard to marriage and who can wed. And, a University of Alabama law professor says that it could also lead to chaos within the nation's dual court system if other state supreme courts follow Alabama's lead. This is because only the US Supreme Court can settle issues between lower federal courts and state supreme courts, and the SCOTUS only hears about 80 to 90 cases per year. That caseload could increase dramatically under such a scenario.
From The Advocate:
In an op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times, University of Alabama law professor Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr. commented that “the state court’s position that it need not follow lower federal court rulings is technically correct” but threatens to create chaos.
“If State Supreme Courts followed the Alabama Supreme Court’s lead, a system of dual courts simply would not work,” Krotoszynski wrote. “The United States Supreme Court, which hears only 80 to 90 cases per year, would not be able to disentangle the legal morass that would result if state courts routinely thumbed their noses at the decisions of their local lower federal courts.”
From
The New York Times:
Since the United States Supreme Court will rule on gay marriage in June, it’s easy to dismiss the Alabama court’s ruling as quixotic. But it raises a real issue: not what state courts can do, but rather what they should do. Because state and federal courts operate on entirely separate tracks, the state court’s position that it need not follow lower federal court rulings is technically correct. Yet if our judicial system is to function smoothly, both court systems must, from time to time, refrain from exercising their legal discretion to ignore the other’s handiwork.
The gay-marriage rulings bring this aspect of the state-federal relationship, called comity, into close focus. Alabama’s probate judges are subject to the jurisdiction of both state and federal courts. If both judicial systems exercise their authority concurrently and independently, issuing conflicting constitutional rulings, the probate judges are caught in a Catch-22. Respecting one court’s order necessarily will involve a failure to respect the other’s.
Chief Justice Marshall observed, “If the legislatures of the several states may at will annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the Constitution itself becomes a solemn mockery.” This holds just as true if state courts exercise an identical nullification power over federal court orders.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s action represents an unfortunate departure from the cooperative norm that must prevail between these independent judicial systems. Other state judiciaries would do well not to follow its example.
The Alabama Supreme Court has not completely defied/ignored the federal district court ruling/order. They have required Mobile County Probate Judge Don Davis to tell them if Judge Granade's ruling/order (enjoining him) covers just the four named plaintiffs or all same-sex couples. It sounds as though they want to interpret her ruling in the narrowest possible way, and abide by that. Now that plaintiffs'
attorneys have filed a request to make the lawsuit a class-action suit covering all same-sex couples in Alabama, it is unclear how the Alabama Supreme Court will respond if Judge Granade grants that request. They might stand down after that - or not.
From The National Law Journal:
State courts can't directly interfere with federal court orders and must follow the U.S. Supreme Court, said Ernest Young, a professor at Duke Law School. But state courts are not bound by a federal district judge's findings about the constitutionality of state law, he said.
Alabama's attorney general, Luther Strange, a named defendant in the same-sex marriage litigation, was required to follow Granade's orders in January that declared the same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, Young said. Most probate judges, who were not defendants, did not have the same obligation, he said.
Should the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling last week reach the U.S. Supreme Court for review, Nan Hunter, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, doesn't expect the state judges to find much sympathy, she said in an email.
The justices in Washington, divided, have refused to put Granade's order on hold while the opponents appealed. And many of the justices, Hunter said, might see the Alabama Supreme Court's actions as a challenge to their authority.
The Alabama court, she said, "skates closer to the line of defiance of the federal judiciary than any action by a state appellate court that I have ever seen."