Hopfmann et al. v. Connolly et al. (471 U.S. 459)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 13, 1985 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 471 U.S. 459 · 105 S. Ct. 2106
- Decided
- May 13, 1985
- Term
- October Term 1984
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is dismissed for want of jurisdiction. Treating the papers whereon the appeal was taken as a petition for writ of certiorari, the petition is granted. Hopfmann filed this action in the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging a provision in the Charter of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Among the theories he advanced was a claim that the provision, as enforced by Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 53, §§1-121 (West 1975 and Supp. 1985), violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Relying on Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U. S. 332, 344 (1975), the Court of Appeals held that the claim was foreclosed by this Court’s summary disposition of two appeals from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Langone v. Connolly, 460 U. S. 1057 (1983). See 746 F. 2d 97, 100-101 (1984). In Hicks, the Court explained the precedential effect of the dismissal “for want of [a] substantial federal question” in Miller v. California, 418 U. S. 915 (1974): “[Miller] was an appeal from a decision by a state court upholding a state statute against federal constitutional attack. A federal constitutional issue was properly presented, it was within our appellate jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2), and we had no discretion to refuse adjudication of the case on its…
Excerpt of a 2,958-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.