Argument of Justice O'Connor
Mr. O'Connor: Finally, I have a Per Curiam opinion to announce in No.03-9560, Howell versus Mississippi.
Marlon Howell, the petitioner in this case, was convicted of capital murder.
He argues that the Mississippi courts violated his Federal constitutional rights by refusing to require a jury instruction for manslaughter or simple murder.
When we granted certiorari, we asked the parties to address whether this federal constitutional claim was properly raised before the Mississippi Supreme Court for purposes of Section 28 U.S. Code 1257.
That statute gives this Court the power to review State Court judgments when federal rights are specially set up or claimed.
Under that statute, this Court has almost unfailingly refused to consider any federal law challenge to a State Court decision unless the federal claim was either addressed by or properly presented to the State Court.
We hold the petitioner's brief in the State Supreme Court did not properly present his claim as one arising under federal law.
In the relevant argument, he did not cite the U.S. Constitution or even any cases directly construing it, much less any of this Court’s cases.
Instead, he argues that he presented his federal claim by citing one case which cited another case, which in turn cited the case from this Court that established the constitutional right he now asserts.
This daisy chain is too lengthy to meet this Court’s standards for proper presentation of a federal claim.
As we recently explained in a slightly different context, a litigant wishing to raise a federal issue can easily indicate the federal law basis for the claim by citing in conjunction with the claim the federal source of law on which he relies or a case deciding such a claim on federal grounds or by simply labeling the claim federal.
In the context of Section 1257, the same steps toward clarity are just as easy to take and are generally necessary to establish that a federal question was properly presented to a State Court.
Petitioner took none of these steps.
Petitioner also contends he raised his federal claim by implication because the State Law rule on which he relied was identical or virtually identical to the constitutional claim we have articulated.
But Mississippi’s rule about jury instructions differs from our constitutional rule in several ways.
Petitioner finally suggests that we still have discretion to consider his federal claim because the presentation requirement is not jurisdictional.
As in prior cases however, we need not decide today whether our requirement that a federal claim be properly presented in a State Court is jurisdictional or prudential, because even treating the rule as purely prudential, the circumstances here justify no exception.
Accordingly, the writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
