## Facts

- Remon Lee was tried in Missouri for first-degree murder and armed criminal action; his main defense was an alibi that he was in California at the time of the killing.
- Lee’s mother, stepfather, and sister traveled to Missouri to testify to the alibi, and defense counsel had subpoenaed them.
- On the third day of trial, when the defense case was to begin, all three alibi witnesses unexpectedly left the courthouse and could not be found.
- Defense counsel immediately made an oral motion in open court for an overnight continuance to locate the witnesses and enforce the subpoenas.
- The trial judge denied the continuance and proceeded with trial; Lee presented no alibi witnesses.
- The jury convicted Lee, and he received a life sentence without parole.

## Issues

1. Whether Missouri’s requirements for continuance motions (including a written motion, affidavit, and specific showings regarding absent witnesses) were an independent and adequate state procedural ground barring federal habeas review of Lee’s federal due process claim.
2. Whether, given the mid-trial disappearance of subpoenaed alibi witnesses and the oral continuance request, enforcing those procedural requirements served a legitimate state interest sufficient to forfeit federal review.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held, 6–3, that the Missouri procedural rules were not an adequate state ground as applied in this case to bar federal habeas review.
- The Court vacated the Eighth Circuit’s judgment, which had treated the state procedural ruling as a federal-review bar, and remanded for further proceedings.
- The Court did not decide the merits of Lee’s underlying claim that denial of the continuance violated due process; it held only that federal courts were not barred from reaching that claim.

## Legal Principles

- Federal habeas review is barred when the last state-court judgment rests on a state-law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.
- “Adequacy” is evaluated in context; a generally valid procedural rule may be inadequate as applied when insistence on compliance would amount to a formal requirement serving no meaningful state interest in the circumstances.
- When a procedural objection is not raised by the trial court or prosecutor at the time of the disputed ruling, later reliance on that procedural defect to defeat review may be inadequate where the defendant lacked a fair opportunity to cure it during trial.
- In assessing adequacy, courts may consider the timing and exigencies of the trial setting, the degree of surprise, and the relation between the procedural requirement and any legitimate interest in orderly trial administration.

## Conclusion

The Court ruled that Missouri’s continuance-motion formalities, invoked by the state appellate court after the fact in the unusual circumstances of missing subpoenaed alibi witnesses mid-trial, were inadequate to bar federal habeas review, and it remanded so the federal courts could consider the due process claim on the merits.


Lee v. Kemna, 534 U.S. 362 (2002)