44 76 Costarelli v. Massachusetts 8212 6739

• Decision Date: 28 April 1975
• Docket Number: No. 73,73
• Citation: 421 U.S. 193,44 L.Ed.2d 76,95 S.Ct. 1534
• Parties: . 44 L.Ed.2d 76 Steven COSTARELLI, Appellant, v. Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS. —6739
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

421 U.S. 193

95 S.Ct. 1534.

44 L.Ed.2d 76

Steven COSTARELLI, Appellant,

v Commonwealth of MASSACHUSETTS.

No. 73—6739.

Argued March 17, 1975.

Decided April 28, 1975.

Robert W. Hagopian, Wrentham, Mass., for appellant.

David A. Mills, Danvers, Mass., for appellee.

PER CURIAM.

Under Massachusetts procedure, a 'two-tier' system is utilized for trial of a variety of criminal charges. The initial trial under this system is in a county district court or the Municipal Court of the City of Boston. No jury is available in these courts, but persons who are convicted in them may obtain a de novo trial, with a jury, in the appropriate superior court by lodging an 'appeal' with that court.¹ At the de novo trial, all issues of law and fact must be determined anew and are not affected by the initial disposition. In effect, the taking of the appeal vacates the district court or Municipal Court judgment, leaving the defendant in the position of defendants in other States which require the prosecution to present its proof before a jury.²

In January 1974, appellant Costarelli was charged with knowing unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, an offense under Mass.Gen.Laws, c. 90 § 24(2)(a) (Supp.1975). The offense carries a maximum sentence of a $500 fine and two years' imprisonment, and is subject to the two-tier system described above. Prior to trial in the Municipal Court, Costarelli moved for a jury trial. The motion was denied and the trial before the court resulted in a judgment of guilty. A one-year prison sentence was imposed. Costarelli thereupon lodged an appeal in the Superior Court for Suffolk County.

Without awaiting proceedings in Superior Court, Costarelli appealed to this Court,³ seeking to establish that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments require that a jury be available in his first trial, whether it be in the Municipal Court or the Superior Court. He also raised speedy trial and double jeopardy contentions as bars to his retrial before a jury. On October 21, 1974, we postponed further consideration of the question of jurisdiction to the hearing on the merits. 419 U.S. 893, 95 S.Ct. 171, 42 L.Ed.2d 137. We now dismiss for want of jurisdiction. Title 28 U.S.C. § 1257 limits our review to the judgment of the highest state court in which a decision could be had, and we conclude that this is not such a judgment.

That a decision of a higher state court might have been had in this case is established by a recent decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Whitmarsh v. Commonwealth, Mass., 316 N.E.2d 610 (1974), in which another criminal defendant sought relief from Massachusetts' two-tier trial system. After conviction without a jury in the first tier, Whitmarsh took his appeal to the Superior Court, but thereupon sought immediate review of his constitutional contentions in the Supreme Judicial Court. As one potential basis of that court's jurisdiction, he asserted its power of 'general superintendence of all courts of inferior jurisdiction to correct and prevent errors and abuses therein if no other remedy is expressly provided.' Mass.Gen.Laws, c. 211, § 3 (1958) (emphasis added). The Supreme Judicial Court rejected this basis of jurisdiction on the ground that another remedy was in fact expressly provided. It stated:

'The constitutional issue the plaintiff now asks us to decide is the same issue which he raised in the District Court, and in the Superior Court by his motion to dismiss. If his motion were denied, and if he were thereafter tried in the Superior Court and found guilty, the plaintiff would have available to him an opportunity for appellate review of the ruling on his motion as matter of right by saving and perfecting exceptions thereto.' 316 N.E.2d, at 613 (footnote omitted).

It is thus clear that Costarelli can raise his constitutional issues in Superior Court by a motion to dismiss, and can obtain state appellate review of an adverse decision through appeal to the state high court. That the issue might be mooted by his acquittal in Superior Court is, of course, without consequence, since an important purpose of the requirement that we review only final judgments of highest available state courts is to prevent our interference with state proceedings when the underlying dispute may be otherwise resolved. Cf. Republic Gas Co. v. Oklahoma, 334 U.S. 62, 67, 68 S.Ct. 972, 92 L.Ed. 1212 (1948); Gorman v. Washington University, 316 U.S. 98, 100—101, 62 S.Ct. 962, 86 L.Ed. 1300 (1942).

Costarelli argues that resort to the remedy outlined in Whitmarsh should be unnecessary, because it cannot produce the relief to which he believes he is entitled. He is of the opinion that if the Superior Court denied his motion to dismiss, he would have no alternative but to proceed to trial before a jury. Once this occurred the error would, he fears, have been cured, or at least mooted.

But we think this contention confuses an argument of substantive constitutional law with an argument relating to the application of 28 U.S.C. § 1257. Whitmarsh undoubtedly contemplates that in the event the Superior Court were to deny Costarelli's motion, he would then have to proceed to trial. But just as surely it contemplates that in the event that judgment were adverse to him, he could appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court and raise before it precisely the constitutional question which had been raised by the motion to dismiss in the Superior Court. Whether the fact that he was afforded a jury trial in the Superior Court proceeding 'cured' or 'mooted' his federal constitutional claim is a matter of federal constitutional law, for determination initially in state courts and ultimately by this Court. That the state courts might conclude that the second-tier trial terminated his claim does not mean that Costarelli may draft his own rules of procedure in order to raise the claim only before those Massachusetts courts which he deems appropriate. Massachusetts affords him a method by which he may raise his constitutional claim in the Superior Court, and a method by which he may, if necessary, appropriately preserve that claim for assertion in the Supreme Judicial Court. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, therefore, is 'the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had' on his claim. Since no decision has been had in that court, we lack jurisdiction of this case.

Appellant relies on language from Largent v. Texas, 318 U.S. 418, 63 S.Ct. 667, 87 L.Ed. 873 (1943), to support a contrary result. In that case we reviewed a judgment of the County Court of Lamar County, Tex. We did so because under Texas law the state-court system provided no appeal from that judgment of conviction. We noted that state habeas corpus was available to test the constitutionality on its face of the...