Cite as: 534 U. S. 362 (2002)
Kennedy, J., dissenting
supra, at 343-344; Staub v. City of Baxley, supra, at 317- 318. None of these decisions used this rationale to disregard a state procedural rule, and with good reason. To require trial judges, as a matter of federal law, to cite their precise grounds for decision would place onerous burdens on the state courts, and it is well settled that an appellate tribunal may affirm a trial court's judgment on any ground supported by the record. See Smith v. Phillips, 455 U. S. 209, 215, n. 6 (1982). Here, moreover, the uncited procedural rule was designed both to "permi[t] the trial court to pass on the merits," State v. Robinson, 864 S. W. 2d 347, 349 (Mo. App. 1993), and to facilitate the appellate court's review of asserted due process errors. Notwithstanding the Court's guess about the judge's and prosecution's inner thoughts concerning the completeness of Lee's motion, see ante, at 380, the Missouri Court of Appeals tells us that Lee's failure to comply with the Rule is considered consequential as a matter of state law. If Lee had complied with Rule 24.10, the trial court might have granted the continuance or given a different reason for denying it. The trial court, in effect, is deemed to have relied on Rule 24.10 when it found Lee had not made a sufficient showing.
Lee was on notice of the applicability of Rule 24.10, and the Court appears to recognize as much. The consideration most important to the Court's analysis, see ante, at 382, relates not to this initial question, but rather to the second part of the adequacy inquiry, which asks whether the rule serves a legitimate state interest. Here, too, in my respectful view, the Court errs.
B
A defendant's failure to comply with a firmly established and regularly followed rule has been deemed an inadequate state ground only when the State had no legitimate interest in the rule's enforcement. Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103, 124 (1990); James v. Kentucky, supra, at 349; Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 512, n. 7 (1978). Most state pro-
391
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