Multistate Bar (MBE) OPE 1 Practice Exam

Adequate and independent state grounds explains why the Supreme Court won’t review a state-court decision when the ruling rests entirely on state law. The idea is that if the state-law grounds are both adequate to support the judgment and independent of any federal-law basis, the decision is effectively final at the state level and federal courts have no jurisdiction to review it. Independence means the reasoning does not rely on federal law, and adequacy means those state grounds could stand alone to sustain the outcome. If the state decision is grounded only in state law and those grounds are adequate and independent, the federal courts will not reach the federal questions that might be lurking. If there’s a federal issue that depends on the state-law decision, or if the state grounds aren’t truly independent or adequate, then federal review could be appropriate.