ployed no less than eighteen times during the course of that opinion.13

Similar expressions, giving specific recognition to the fact that judicial action is to be regarded as action of the State for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment, are to be found in numerous cases which have been more recently decided.. In Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 90-91 (1908), the Court said: "The judicial act of the highest court of the State, in authoritatively construing and enforcing its laws, is the act of the State." In Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings Co. v. Hill, 281 U. S. 673, 680 (1930), the Court, through Mr. Justice Brandeis, stated: "The federal guaranty of due process extends to state action through its judicial as well as through its legislative, executive or administrative branch of government." Further examples of such declarations in the opinions of this Court are not lacking.1

One of the earliest applications of the prohibitions contained in the Fourteenth Amendment to action of state

13 Among the phrases appearing in the opinion are the following: "the operation of State laws, and the action of State officers executive or judicial"; "State laws and State proceedings"; "State law... or some State action through its officers or agents"; "State laws and acts done under State authority"; "State laws, or State action of some kind"; "such laws as the States may adopt or enforce"; "such acts and proceedings as the States may commit or take"; "State legislation or action"; "State law or State authority."

14 Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 397 (1881); Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34, 45 (1894); Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226, 233-235 (1897); Hovey v. Elliott, 167 U. S. 409, 417-418 (1897); Carter v. Texas, 177 U. S. 442, 447 (1900); Martin v. Texas, 200 U. S. 316, 319 (1906); Raymond v. Chicago Union Traction Co., 207 U. S. 20, 35-36 (1907); Home Telephone and Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 227 U. S. 278, 286-287 (1913); Prudential Insurance Co. v. Cheek, 259 U. S. 530, 548 (1922); American Railway Express Co. v. Kentucky, 273 U. S. 269, 274 (1927); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103, 112-113 (1935); Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32, 41 (1940).

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judicial officials occurred in cases in which Negroes had been excluded from jury service in criminal prosecutions by reason of their race or color. These cases demonstrate, also, the early recognition by this Court that state action in violation of the Amendment's provisions is equally repugnant to the constitutional commands whether directed by state statute or taken by a judicial official in the absence of statute. Thus, in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880), this Court declared invalid a state statute restricting jury service to white persons as amounting to a denial of the equal protection of the laws to the colored defendant in that case. In the same volume of the reports, the Court in Ex parte Virginia, supra, held that a similar discrimination imposed by the action of a state judge denied rights protected by the Amendment, despite the fact that the language of the state statute relating to jury service contained no such restrictions.

The action of state courts in imposing penalties or depriving parties of other substantive rights without providing adequate notice and opportunity to defend, has, of course, long been regarded as a denial of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Brinkerhoff-Faris Trust & Savings Co. v. Hill, supra. Cf. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714 (1878).15

In numerous cases, this Court has reversed criminal convictions in state courts for failure of those courts to provide the essential ingredients of a fair hearing. Thus it has been held that convictions obtained in state courts under the domination of a mob are void. Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86 (1923). And see Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309 (1915). Convictions obtained by

15 And see Standard Oil Co. v. Missouri, 224 U. S. 270, 281-282 (1912); Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32 (1940).

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Opinion of the Court.

coerced confessions,16 by the use of perjured testimony known by the prosecution to be such," or without the effective assistance of counsel,18 have also been held to be exertions of state authority in conflict with the fundamental rights protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

But the examples of state judicial action which have been held by this Court to violate the Amendment's commands are not restricted to situations in which the judicial proceedings were found in some manner to be procedurally unfair. It has been recognized that the action of state courts in enforcing a substantive common-law rule formulated by those courts, may result in the denial of rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, even though the judicial proceedings in such cases may have been in complete accord with the most rigorous conceptions of procedural due process.1 Thus, in American Federation of Labor v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321 (1941), enforcement by state courts of the common-law policy of the State, which resulted in the restraining of peaceful picketing, was held to be state action of the sort prohibited by the Amendment's guaranties of freedom of discussion.20 In Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296

19

16 Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278 (1936); Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227 (1940); Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143 (1944); Lee v. Mississippi, 332 U. S. 742 (1948).

17 See Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 (1935); Pyle v. Kansas, 317 U. S. 213 (1942).

18 Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932); Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U. S. 471 (1945); Tomkins v. Missouri, 323 U. S. 485 (1945); De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U. S. 663 (1947).

19 In applying the rule of Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64 (1938), it is clear that the common-law rules enunciated by state courts in judicial opinions are to be regarded as a part of the law of the State.

20 And see Bakery Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769 (1942); Cafeteria Employees Union v. Angelos, 320 U. S. 293 (1943).

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(1940), a conviction in a state court of the common-law crime of breach of the peace was, under the circumstances of the case, found to be a violation of the Amendment's commands relating to freedom of religion. In Bridges v. California, 314 U. S. 252 (1941), enforcement of the state's common-law rule relating to contempts by publication was held to be state action inconsistent with the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment." And cf. Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U.S. 226 (1897).

The short of the matter is that from the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment until the present, it has been the consistent ruling of this Court that the action of the States to which the Amendment has reference includes action of state courts and state judicial officials. Although, in construing the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment, differences have from time to time been expressed as to whether particular types of state action may be said to offend the Amendment's prohibitory provisions, it has never been suggested that state court action is immunized from the operation of those provisions simply because the act is that of the judicial branch of the state government.

III.

Against this background of judicial construction, extending over a period of some three-quarters of a century, we are called upon to consider whether enforcement by state courts of the restrictive agreements in these cases may be deemed to be the acts of those States; and, if so, whether that action has denied these petitioners the equal protection of the laws which the Amendment was intended to insure.

21 And see Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331 (1946); Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367 (1947).

We have no doubt that there has been state action in these cases in the full and complete sense of the phrase. The undisputed facts disclose that petitioners were willing purchasers of properties upon which they desired to establish homes. The owners of the properties were willing sellers; and contracts of sale were accordingly consummated. It is clear that but for the active intervention of the state courts, supported by the full panoply of state power, petitioners would have been free to occupy the properties in question without restraint.

These are not cases, as has been suggested, in which the States have merely abstained from action, leaving private individuals free to impose such discriminations as they see fit. Rather, these are cases in which the States have made available to such individuals the full coercive power of government to deny to petitioners, on the grounds of race or color, the enjoyment of property rights in premises which petitioners are willing and financially able to acquire and which the grantors are willing to sell. The difference between judicial enforcement and nonenforcement of the restrictive covenants is the difference to petitioners between being denied rights of property available to other members of the community and being accorded full enjoyment of those rights on an equal footing.

The enforcement of the restrictive agreements by the state courts in these cases was directed pursuant to the common-law policy of the States as formulated by those courts in earlier decisions.22 In the Missouri case, enforcement of the covenant was directed in the first instance by the highest court of the State after the trial court had determined the agreement to be invalid for

22 See Swain v. Maxwell, 355 Mo. 448, 196 S. W. 2d 780 (1946); Koehler v. Rowland, 275 Mo. 573, 205 S. W. 217 (1918). See also Parmalee v. Morris, 218 Mich. 625, 188 N. W. 330 (1922). Cf. Porter v. Barrett, 233 Mich. 373, 206 N. W. 532 (1925).