enforced in the courts of that State because the act was contrary to
State policy, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed that decision.
Said Justice Van Devanter: "The suggestion that the act of Congress is
not in harmony with the policy of the State, and therefore that the
courts of the State are free to decline jurisdiction, is quite
inadmissible, because it presupposes what in legal contemplation does
not exist. When Congress, in the exertion of the power confided to it by
the Constitution, adopted that act, it spoke for all the people and all
the States, and thereby established a policy for all. That policy is as
much the policy of Connecticut as if the act had emanated from its own
legislature, and should be respected accordingly in the courts of the
State."[31] Even if a federal statute is penal in character, a State may
not refuse to enforce it if Congress allows it to take concurrent
jurisdiction. In Testa _v._ Katt,[32] the Supreme Court reversed a
holding of Rhode Island's highest court that, inasmuch as a State need
not enforce the penal laws of another jurisdiction, a suit for treble
damages for violation of OPA regulations could not be maintained in the
courts of the State. Without determining the nature of the statute, it
affirmed once more without dissent that "the policy of the federal Act
is the prevailing policy in every state."[33]

IMMUNITY OF THE FEDERAL JUDICIAL PROCESS

It would seem self-evident that a State court cannot interfere with the
functioning of a federal tribunal. But this proposition has not always
gone unchallenged. Shortly before the Civil War, the Supreme Court of
Wisconsin, holding the federal fugitive slave law invalid, ordered a
United States marshal to release a prisoner who had been convicted of
aiding and abetting the escape of a fugitive slave. In a further act of
defiance, the State court instructed its clerk to disregard and refuse
obedience to the writ of error issued by the United States Supreme
Court. Strongly denouncing this interference with federal authority,
Chief Justice Taney held that when a State court is advised, on the
return of a writ of _habeas corpus_, that the prisoner is in custody on
authority of the United States, it can proceed no further.[34] To
protect the performance of its functions against interference by State
tribunals, Congress may constitutionally authorize the removal to a
federal court of a criminal prosecution commenced in a State court