Key v. Doyle

Background

Sallye Lipscomb French died 20 days after executing a will that left most of her estate to certain churches in the District of Columbia. Section 18-302 of the D. C. Code voids religious gifts or bequests made within 30 days of death. The executor asked the local probate court for instructions, and both the Superior Court and the D. C. Court of Appeals declared the D. C. statute unconstitutional. The decedent’s heirs then appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming a right of direct appeal under 28 U. S. C. §1257(1).

Reasoning

The central question was whether a law limited in operation to the District of Columbia counts as a “statute of the United States” for the direct-appeal rule. The Court held it does not. Relying on the 1970 reorganization that made the D. C. Court of Appeals analogous to a state high court, on the earlier Palmore decision, and on the principle of narrowly construing statutes that create appeals as of right, the majority concluded that a local D. C. law does not trigger an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court. Because the appeal provision did not cover statutes of exclusively local application, the Court dismissed the appeal for want of authority to hear it.

Real world impact

As a result, people challenging provisions of the D. C. Code cannot secure an automatic, one-step appeal to the Supreme Court; they must petition the Court for discretionary review (a writ of certiorari). In this case the Court treated the appeal papers as a certiorari petition and denied it. This ruling decides only who may appeal, not the constitutional question about the will statute itself.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice White, joined by three colleagues, dissented. He argued that historical practice and prior cases treated D. C. enactments as federal statutes and that Congress likely intended direct appeals in such cases, so the majority’s choice was incorrect.