was content to assume as it did in
Frank _v._ Mangum,[991] decided in 1915, that inasmuch as the
proceedings in the State appellate court formally appeared to be
sufficient to correct errors committed by a trial court alleged to have
been intimidated by a mob, the conclusion by that appellate court that
the trial court's sentence of execution should be affirmed was ample
assurance that life would not be forfeited without due process of law.
Apparently in observance of a principle of comity, whereunder a State
appellate court's holding, though acknowledged as not binding, was
deemed entitled to utmost respect, the Court persisted in its refusal to
make an independent examination of allegations of a denial of due
process. Eight years later, in Moore _v._ Dempsey,[992] a case involving
similar allegations of mob domination, the Court, on this occasion
speaking through Justice Holmes who had dissented in the preceding
decision, ordered the federal district court, in which the defendants
had petitioned for a writ of _habeas corpus_ and which had sustained
the State of Arkansas's demurrer thereto, to make an independent
investigation of the facts, notwithstanding that the Arkansas appellate
court had ruled that, in view of the legally sufficient evidence on
which the verdict was based and the competent counsel defending the
accused, the allegations of mob domination did not suffice to void the
trial.

Indubitably, Moore _v._ Dempsey marked the abandonment of the Supreme
Court's deference, founded upon considerations of comity, to decisions
of State appellate tribunals on issues of constitutionality and the
proclamation of its intention no longer to treat as virtually conclusive
pronouncements by the latter that proceedings in a trial court were
fair. However, the enduring character of this precedent was depreciated
by the Court's insistence that Moore _v._ Dempsey was decided
consistently[993] with Frank _v._ Mangum; and it was not until the later
holding in Brown _v._ Mississippi in 1936 and the numerous decisions
rendered conformably thereto in the decade following that all
uncertainty was dispelled as to the Supreme Court's willingness to
engage in its own independent examination of the constitutional adequacy
of trial court proceedings.

DUE PROCESS: MISCELLANEOUS

Appeals

In every case a point is reached where litigation must cease; and what
that point is can best be determined by the State legislature. The pow