was no Indiana statute and no case law in 1971 prohibiting a circuit court, a court of general jurisdiction, from considering a petition of the type presented to Judge Stump. Addressing Judge Swygert's assertion that even if Judge Stump had jurisdiction he was deprived of immunity because of his failure to observe elementary principles of procedural due process, Justice White countered: A judge is absolutely immune from liability for his judicial acts even if his exercise of authority is flawed by the commission of grave procedural errors. The Court made this point clear in Bradley, 13 Wall., at 357, where it stated "[T]his erroneous matter in which [the court's] jurisdiction was exercised, however it may have affected the validity of the act, did not make it any less a judicial act; nor did it render the defendant liable to answer in damages for it at the suit of the plaintiff, as though the court had proceeded without having any jurisdiction whatever.... Test of a "judicial act" The majority opinion went on to decide that the factors determining whether an act by a judge is a judicial act "relate to the nature of the act itself": whether it is a function normally performed by a judge; and whether the parties dealt with the judge in his judicial capacity. In the view of the majority, Judge Stump's action passed this test. Even if his decision was erroneous, it was within his jurisdiction to consider Ora McFarlin's petition. Moreover, the parties dealt with Judge Stump in his capacity as a judge, not as a private individual. Accordingly, he could not be held liable for the consequences of his actions, even if they were arguably tragic. The dissent Justice Stewart's dissent Associate Justice Potter Stewart entered a vigorous dissent. Agreeing that judges of general jurisdiction enjoy absolute immunity for their judicial acts, he wrote, "...what Judge Stump did...was beyond the pale of anything that could sensibly be called a judicial act." Stating that it was "factually untrue" that what Judge Stump did was an act "normally performed by a judge", he wrote "...there is no reason to believe that such an act has ever been performed by any other Indiana judge, either before or since." Justice Stewart also denounced it as "legally unsound" to rule that Judge Stump had acted in a "judicial capacity". "A judge is not free, like a loose cannon", he