Williams v. State of North Carolina [II]

Williams and Hendrix (defendants) were each married to other people and living in North Carolina when they traveled to Nevada, obtained divorces, married each other, and returned home. In an earlier case (Williams I), the Supreme Court said North Carolina could not reject the Nevada divorces on public-policy grounds because their validity had not been challenged on jurisdictional grounds. On retrial, North Carolina (plaintiff, as prosecutor) argued the couple never truly established Nevada domicile, so Nevada lacked jurisdiction to divorce them. The jury was told Nevada's domicile finding was strong but not conclusive evidence, found they never abandoned North Carolina domicile, and convicted them of bigamy. They sought certiorari.

Whether a state may challenge the validity of a sister state's divorce decree on jurisdictional grounds where the question of domicile was not actually litigated in the original divorce proceeding.