Ideal System...Schiavo as an illustration

[LaggyLou]

[ QUOTE ]

The state court's ruling on a constitutional question aren't binding on federal courts

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, that's not quite right. Litigants cannot take a federal claim into state court -- even a constitutional question -- lose, and then relitigate the same claim in federal courts. That is not becuase a state court's pronoucement on constitutional law is binding on federal courts, it is because the state court's adjudication is binding on the parties. If you take a federal claim into state court, and lose, your only chance to get federal review is an appeal to the US Supreme Court. The Schindler's did appeal to the USSC following the first litigation in the florida Courts so they apparently did have some federal claims in their first case.

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
2) other claims would likely have been barred by the rule that you need to bring all of your claims arising from one set of facts in one case or by abstention principles.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would suspect this is closer, but the Constitutional claims didn't come into play until the "state action" of ordering the removal of the feeding tube, thus, they couldn't have been argued.

[/ QUOTE ]

They could have been argued, and I believe were, on direct appeal. There was also, I understand, a 2003 federal lawsuit.