26
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
structs that a state-court opinion discussing both state and federal precedents shall be deemed to rely on federal law, absent a plain statement in the opinion that the decision rests on state law. 463 U. S., at 1040-1042.2 For reasons this case illustrates, I would choose the opposite plain statement rule. I would presume, absent a plain statement to the contrary, that a state court's decision of the kind here at issue rests on an independent state-law ground.3
II
A
Widespread reliance on computers to store and convey information generates, along with manifold benefits, new possibilities of error, due to both computer malfunctions and operator mistakes. Most germane to this case, computerization greatly amplifies an error's effect, and correspondingly intensifies the need for prompt correction; for inaccurate data can infect not only one agency, but the many agencies that share access to the data base. The computerized data bases of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), to take a conspicuous example, contain
2 The Long presumption becomes operative when two conditions are met: (1) the state-court decision must "fairly appea[r] to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law"; and (2) "the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground [must] not [be] clear from the face of the opinion." 463 U. S., at 1040-1041.
3 I recognize, in accord with Long on this point, that there will be cases in which a presumption concerning exercise of the Court's jurisdiction should yield, i. e., exceptional instances in which vacation of a state court's judgment and remand for clarification of the court's decision is in order. See id., at 1041, n. 6 ("There may be certain circumstances in which clarification is necessary or desirable, and we will not be foreclosed from taking the appropriate action."); Capital Cities Media, Inc. v. Toole, 466 U. S. 378, 379 (1984) (per curiam) (post-Long decision vacating state-court judgment and remanding for such further proceedings as the state court might deem appropriate to clarify the ground of its decision).
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