780
Opinion of the Court
yet to decide whether the evidence should be suppressed; that will be resolved on remand. If the State prevails on remand and the evidence is admitted under Chimel, then the Belton issue will be moot, and the State cannot seek review of it. But if the State loses, and the evidence is suppressed, Florida law allows the State to appeal, as long as it does so prior to trial. Fla. Stat. § 924.071(1) (1996) ("The state may appeal from a pretrial order . . . suppressing evidence"); Fla. Rule App. Proc. 9.140(c)(1)(B) (2001) ("The state may appeal an order . . . suppressing before trial . . . evidence obtained by search and seizure"). Should the Supreme Court of Florida rule against the State on the Chimel issue, the question of suppression would be finally decided by the Florida courts, and the State could then seek certiorari in this Court. At that time it could obtain review of both the Belton issue and the Chimel issue. See Jefferson v. City of Tarrant, 522 U. S. 75, 83 (1997).
The fourth Cox category includes those cases where "the federal issue has been finally decided in the state courts with further proceedings pending in which the party seeking review here might prevail on the merits on nonfederal grounds, thus rendering unnecessary review of the federal issue by this Court, and where reversal of the state court on the federal issue would be preclusive of any further litigation on the relevant cause of action rather than merely controlling the nature and character of, or determining the admissibility of evidence in, the state proceedings still to come. In these circumstances, if a refusal immediately to review the state-court decision might seriously erode federal policy, the Court has entertained and decided the federal issue, which itself has been finally determined by the state courts for purposes of the state litigation." 420 U. S., at 482-483.
Here the State can make no claim of serious erosion of federal policy that is not common to all run-of-the-mine decisions suppressing evidence in criminal trials. The fourth Cox exception does not apply here.
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