Lefkowitz v. Newsome, 420 U.S. 283 (1975), is a U.S. Supreme Court case which held that when state law permits a defendant to plead guilty without giving up his right to judicial review of specified constitutional issues, such as the lawfulness of a search or the voluntariness of a confession, the defendant is not prevented from pursuing those constitutional claims in a federal habeas corpus proceeding.

Leon Newsome was arrested on the charge of loitering in the lobby of a New York City Housing Authority apartment building.

At the sentencing proceeding, Newsome announced that he would appeal both the loitering conviction and the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence related to the drug charges.

[1] The loitering charge was reversed upon appeal for lack of evidence by Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, but the drug convictions were upheld on the grounds that there was probable cause for the original arrest and search.

Since there was a conflict between Newsome's case and a previous decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the US Supreme Court granted certiorari restricted to the question of Newsome's right to file a federal habeas corpus petition challenging the issues in his case; that is, was the search lawful and was the confession voluntary, when a state provides for appellate review of those issues after a guilty plea?