44
Opinion of the Court
The dissent describes the Government as having "expressly acknowledged [in the Court of Appeals] the responsibilities described in Page," post, at 56 (emphasis added). It did no such thing. Rather, the Government acknowledged "that it has certain responsibilities under . . . Page." Brief for United States in Response to Appellee's Brief in Nos. 88- 2827, 88-2843 (CA10), p. 9 (emphasis added). It conceded, in other words, not that the responsibilities Page had imposed were proper, but merely that Page had imposed them—over the protests of the Government, but in a judgment that was nonetheless binding precedent for the panel below. The dissent would apparently impose, as an absolute condition to our granting certiorari upon an issue decided by a lower court, that a party demand overruling of a squarely applicable, recent circuit precedent, even though that precedent was established in a case to which the party itself was privy and over the party's vigorous objection, see Page, 808 F. 2d, at 727 ("The government counters that a prosecutor has no duty to disclose exculpatory evidence [to a grand jury]"), and even though no "intervening developments in the law," post, at 59, n. 5, had occurred. That seems to us unreasonable.
In short, having reconsidered the precise question we resolved when this petition for review was granted, we again answer it the same way. It is a permissible exercise of our discretion to undertake review of an important issue expressly decided by a federal court 5 where, although the peti-5 Where certiorari is sought to a state court, "due regard for the appropriate relationship of this Court to state courts," McGoldrick v. Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, 309 U. S. 430, 434-435 (1940), may suggest greater restraint in applying our "pressed or passed upon" rule. In that context, the absence of challenge to a seemingly settled federal rule deprives the state court of an opportunity to rest its decision on an adequate and independent state ground. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 222 (1983), cited by the dissent post, at 59; see also Bankers Life & Casualty Co. v. Crenshaw, 486 U. S. 71, 79-80 (1988). But cf. Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U. S. 663, 667 (1991) ("It is irrelevant to this Court's juris-
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