Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a case about federalism. It concerns the respect that federal courts owe the States and the States’ procedural rules when reviewing the claims of state prisoners in federal habeas corpus.
I
A Buchanan County, Virginia, jury convicted Roger Keith Coleman of rape and capital murder and fixed the sentence at
Coleman then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Circuit Court for Buchanan County, raising numerous federal constitutional claims that he had not raised on direct appeal. After a 2-day evidentiary hearing, the Circuit Court ruled against Coleman on all claims. App. 3-19. The court entered its final judgment on September 4, 1986.
Coleman filed his notice of appeal with the Circuit Court on October 7, 1986, 33 days after the entry of final judgment. Coleman subsequently filed a petition for appeal in the Virginia Supreme Court. The Commonwealth of Virginia, as appellee, filed a motion to dismiss the appeal. The sole ground for dismissal urged in the motion was that Coleman’s notice of appeal had been filed late. Virginia Supreme Court Rule 5:9(a) provides that no appeal shall be allowed unless a notice of appeal is filed with the trial court within 30 days of final judgment.
The Virginia Supreme Court did not act immediately on the Commonwealth’s motion, and both parties filed several briefs on the subject of the motion to dismiss and on the merits of the claims in Coleman’s petition. On May 19, 1987, the Virginia Supreme Court issued the following order, dismissing Coleman’s appeal:
“On December 4, 1986 came the appellant, by counsel, and filed a petition for appeal in the above-styled case.
“Thereupon came the appellee, by the Attorney General of Virginia, and filed a motion to dismiss the petition for appeal; on December 19, 1986 the appellant filed a memorandum in opposition to the motion to dismiss; on December 19, 1986 the appellee filed a reply to the appellant’s memorandum; on December 23, 1986 the appelleefiled a brief in opposition to the petition for appeal; on December 23, 1986 the appellant filed a surreply in opposition to the appellee’s motion to dismiss; and on January 6, 1987 the appellant filed a reply brief.
“Upon consideration whereof, the motion to dismiss is granted and the petition for appeal is dismissed.” App. 25-26.
This Court again denied certiorari. Coleman v. Bass,
Coleman next filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. In his petition, Coleman presented four federal constitutional claims he had raised on direct appeal in the Virginia Supreme Court and seven claims he had raised for the first time in state habeas. The District Court concluded that, by virtue of the dismissal of his appeal by the Virginia Supreme Copurt in state habeas, Coleman had procedurally defaulted the seven claims. Ap. 38-39. The District Court nonetheless went on to address the merits of all 11 of Coleman’s claims. The court ruled against Coleman on all of the claims and denied the petition. Id., at 40-52.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed.
rH h — I
A
This Court will not review a question of federal law decided by a state court if the decision of that court rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment. See, e. g., Fox Film Corp. v. Muller,
We have applied the independent and adequate state ground doctrine not only in our own review of state court judgments, but in deciding whether federal district courts should address the claims of state prisoners in habeas corpus actions. The doctrine applies to bar federal habeas when
The basis for application of the independent and adequate state ground doctrine in federal habeas is somewhat different than on direct review by this Court. When this Court reviews a state court decision on direct review pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1257, it is reviewing the judgment; if resolution of a federal question cannot affect the judgment, there is nothing for the Court to do. This is not the case in habeas. When a federal district court reviews a state prisoner’s ha-beas corpus petition pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254, it must decide whether the petitioner is “in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” Ibid. The court does not review a judgment, but the lawfulness of the petitioner’s custody simpliciter. See Fay v. Noia,
Nonetheless, a state prisoner is in custody pursuant to a judgment. When a federal habeas court releases a prisoner held pursuant to a state court judgment that rests on an independent and adequate state ground, it renders ineffective the state rule just as completely as if this Court had reversed the state judgment on direct review. See id., at 469 (Harlan, J., dissenting). In such a case, the habeas court ignores the State’s legitimate reasons for holding the prisoner.
In the habeas context, the application of the independent and adequate state ground doctrine is grounded in concerns of comity and federalism. Without the rule, a federal district court would be able to do in habeas what this Court could not do on direct review; habeas would offer state prisoners whose custody was supported by independent and ade
When the independent and adequate state ground supporting a habeas petitioner’s custody is a state procedural default, an additional concern comes into play. This Court has long held that a state prisoner’s federal habeas petition should be dismissed if the prisoner has not exhausted available state remedies as to any of his federal claims. See Ex parte Royall,
“The exhaustion doctrine is principally designed to protect the state courts’ role in the enforcement of federal law and prevent disruption of state judicial proceedings. See Braden v. 30th Judicial Circuit Court of Kentucky,410 U. S. 484 , 490-491 (1973). Under our federal system, the federal and state ‘courts [are] equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution.’ Ex parte Royall,117 U. S., at 251 . Because ‘it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation,’ federal courts apply the doctrine of comity, which ‘teaches that one court should defer action on causes properly within its jurisdiction until the courts of another sovereignty with concurrent powers, and already cognizant of the litigation, have had an opportunity to pass upon the matter.’ Darr v. Burford,339 U. S. 200 , 204 (1950).” Id., at 518.
These same concerns apply to federal claims that have been procedurally defaulted in state court. Just as in those
B
It is not always easy for a federal court to apply the independent and adequate state ground doctrine. State court opinions will, at times, discuss federal questions at length and mention a state law basis for decision only briefly. In such cases, it is often difficult to determine if the state law discussion is truly an independent basis for decision or merely a passing reference. In other cases, state opinions purporting to apply state constitutional law will derive principles by reference to federal constitutional decisions from this Court. Again, it is unclear from such opinions whether the state law decision is independent of federal law.
In Michigan v. Long,
“[W]hen, as in this case, a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion, we will accept as the most reasonable explanation that the state court decided the case the way it did because it believed that federal law required it to do so.” Id., at 1040-1041.
After Long, a state court that wishes to look to federal law for guidance or as an alternative holding while still relying on an independent and adequate state ground can avoid the presumption by stating “clearly and expressly that [its decision] is . . . based on bona fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds.” Id., at 1041.
In Caldwell v. Mississippi,
Long and Caldwell were direct review eases. We first considered the problem of ambiguous state court decisions in the application of the independent and adequate state ground doctrine in a federal habeas case in Harris v. Reed,
The situation presented to this Court was nearly identical to that in Long and Caldwell: a state court decision that fairly appeared to rest primarily on federal law in a context in which a federal court has an obligation to determine if the state court decision rested on an independent and adequate state ground. “Faced with a common problem, we adopt[ed] a common solution.” Harris, supra, at 263. Harris applied in federal habeas the presumption this Court adopted in Long for direct review cases. Because the Illinois Appellate Court did not “clearly and expressly” rely on waiver as a ground for rejecting Harris’ ineffective assistance of counsel claims, the Long presumption applied and Harris was not barred from federal habeas. Harris, supra, at 266.
After Harris, federal courts on habeas corpus review of state prisoner claims, like this Court on direct review of state
Ill
A
Coleman contends that the presumption of Long and Harris applies in this case and precludes a bar to habeas because the Virginia Supreme Court’s order dismissing Coleman’s appeal did not “clearly and expressly” state that it was based on state procedural grounds. Coleman reads Harris too broadly. A predicate to the application of the Harris presumption is that the decision of the last state court to which the petitioner presented his federal claims must fairly appear to rest primarily on federal law or to be interwoven with federal law.
Coleman relies on other language in Harris. That opinion announces that “a procedural default does not bar consideration of a federal claim on either direct or habeas review unless the last state court rendering a judgment in the case
Coleman has read the rule out of context. It is unmistakably clear that Harris applies the same presumption in ha-beas that Long and Caldwell adopted in direct review cases in this Court. See Harris,
Coleman urges a broader rule: that the presumption applies in all cases in which a habeas petitioner presented his federal claims to the state court. This rule makes little sense. In direct review cases, “[i]t is . . . ‘incumbent upon this Court ... to ascertain for itself . . . whether the asserted non-federal ground independently and adequately supports the [state court] judgment.’” Long, supra, at 1038, quoting Abie State Bank v. Bryan,
“Per se rules . . . require the Court to make broad generalizations .... Cases that do not fit the generalization may arise, but a per se rule reflects the judgment that such cases are not sufficiently common or important to justify the time and expense necessary to identify them.” Continental T. V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc.,433 U. S. 36 , 50, n. 16 (1977).
Per se rules should not be applied, however, in situations where the generalization is incorrect as an empirical matter; the justification for a conclusive presumption disappears when application of the presumption will not reach the correct result most of the time. The Long and Harris presumption works because in the majority of cases in which a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law or to be interwoven with such law, and the state court does not plainly state that it is relying on an independent and adequate state ground, the state court decision did not in fact rest on an independent and adequate state ground. We accept errors in those small number of cases where there was nonetheless an independent and adequate state ground in exchange for a significant reduction in the costs of inquiry.
The tradeoff is very different when the factual predicate does not exist. In those cases in which it does not fairly appear that the state court rested its decision primarily on federal grounds, it is simply not true that the “most reasonable explanation” is that the state judgment rested on federal grounds. Cf. Long, supra, at 1041. Yet Coleman would have the federal courts apply a conclusive presumption of no independent and adequate state grounds in every case in which a state prisoner presented his federal claims to a state
It may be argued that a broadly applicable presumption is not counterfactual after it is announced: Once state courts know that their decisions resting on independent and adequate state procedural grounds will be honored in federal habeas only if there is a clear and express statement of the default, these courts will provide such a statement in all relevant cases. This argument does not help Coleman. Even assuming that Harris can be read as establishing a presumption in all cases, the Virginia Supreme Court issued its order dismissing Coleman’s appeal before this Court decided Harris. As to this state court order, the absence of an express statement of procedural default is not very informative.
In any event, we decline to establish such a rule here, for it would place burdens on the States and state courts in exchange for very little benefit to the federal courts. We are, as an initial matter, far from confident that the empirical assumption of the argument for such a rule is correct. It is not necessarily the case that state courts will take pains to provide a clear and express statement of procedural default in all cases, even after announcement of the rule. State courts presumably have a dignitary interest in seeing that their state law decisions are not ignored by a federal habeas court, but most of the price paid for federal review of state prisoner claims is paid by the State. When a federal habeas court considers the federal claims of a prisoner in state custody for independent and adequate state law reasons, it is the State that must respond. It is the State that pays the price in
A broad presumption would also put too great a burden on the state courts. It remains the duty of the federal courts, whether this Court on direct review, or lower federal courts in habeas, to determine the scope of the relevant state court judgment. We can establish a per se rule that eases the burden of inquiry on the federal courts in those cases where there are few costs to doing so, but we have no power to tell state courts how they must write their opinions. We encourage state courts to express plainly, in every decision potentially subject to federal review, the grounds upon which their judgments rest, but we will not impose on state courts the responsibility for using particular language in every case in which a state prisoner presents a federal claim — every state appeal, every denial of state collateral review — in order that federal courts might not be bothered with reviewing state law and the record in the case.
Nor do we believe that the federal courts will save much work by applying the Harris presumption in all cases. The presumption at present applies only, when it fairly appears that a state court judgment rested primarily on federal law or was interwoven with federal law, that is, in those cases where a federal court has good reason to question whether there is an independent and adequate state ground for the decision. In the rest of the cases, there is little need for a conclusive presumption. In the absence of a clear indication
There is, in sum, little that the federal courts will gain by applying a presumption of federal review in those cases where the relevant state court decision does not fairly appear ■ to rest primarily on federal law or to be interwoven with such law, and much that the States and state courts will lose. We decline to so expand the Harris presumption.
B
The Harris presumption does not apply here. Coleman does not argue, nor could he, that it “fairly appears” that the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision rested primarily on federal law or was interwoven with such law. The Virginia Supreme Court stated plainly that it was granting the Commonwealth’s motion to dismiss the petition for appeal. That motion was based solely on Coleman’s failure to meet the Supreme Court’s time requirements. There is no mention of federal law in the Virginia Supreme Court’s three-sentence dismissal order. It “fairly appears” to rest primarily on state law.
Coleman concedes that the Virginia Supreme Court dismissed his state habeas appeal as untimely, applying a state procedural rule. Brief for Petitioner 9. He argues instead that the court’s application of this procedural rule was not independent of federal law.
Virginia Supreme Court Rule 5:5(a) declares that the 80-day requirement for filing a notice of appeal is “mandatory.” The Virginia Supreme Court has reiterated the unwaivable nature of this requirement. See School Bd. of Lynchburg v. Scott,
Ake was a direct review case. We have never applied its rule regarding independent state grounds in federal habeas. But even if Ake applies here, it does Coleman no good because the Virginia Supreme Court relied on an independent state procedural rule.
Coleman cites Tharp v. Commonwealth,
“Henceforth we will extend the time for filing a petition for a writ of error only if it is found that to deny the extension would abridge a constitutional right.” Id., at 3,175 S. E. 2d, at 278 .
Coleman contends that the Virginia Supreme Court’s exception for constitutional claims demonstrates that the court will conduct at least a cursory review of a petitioner’s constitutional claims on the merits before dismissing an appeal.
We are not convinced that Tharp stands for the rule that Coleman believes it does. Coleman reads that case as establishing a practice in the Virginia Supreme Court of examining the merits of all underlying constitutional claims before denying a petition for appeal or writ of error as time barred. A more natural reading is that the Virginia Supreme Court will only grant an extension of time if the denial itself would
This was the case, for example, in Cabaniss v. Cunningham,
Even if we accept Coleman’s reading of Tharp, however, it is clear that the Virginia Supreme Court did not apply the Tharp rule here. Tharp concerns the filing requirement for petitions. Here, it was not Coleman’s petition for appeal that was late, but his notice of appeal. A petition for appeal to the Virginia Supreme Court is a document filed with that court in which the petitioner describes the alleged errors in the decision below. Va. Sup. Ct. Rule 5:17(c). It need only be filed within three months of the final judgment of a trial court. Rule 5:17(a)(1). By contrast, the notice of appeal is a document filed with the trial court that notifies that court and the Virginia Supreme Court, as well as the parties, that there will be an appeal; it is a purely ministerial document. Rule 5:9. The notice of the appeal must be filed within 30
Coleman cites also O’Brien v. Socony Mobil Oil Co.,
In O’Brien, the Virginia Supreme Court. expressly reserved the “question whether the precedent of the Cabaniss, Thacker and Stokes cases should be followed in cases involving denial of constitutional property rights.”
Coleman argues that O’Brien demonstrates that the Virginia Supreme Court will review the merits of constitutional claims before deciding whether to dismiss an appeal as untimely. The court in O’Brien did conduct such a review, but the court also explicitly declined to announce a rule that there is a constitutional exception to the time requirement for filing a notice of appeal. There is no evidence other than O’Brien that the Virginia Supreme Court has ever conducted such a review, and O’Brien explicitly declined to announce such a
Finally, Coleman argues that the Virginia Supreme Court’s dismissal order in this case is at least ambiguous because it was issued “[u]pon consideration” of all the filed papers, including Coleman’s petition for appeal and the Commonwealth’s brief in opposition, both of which discussed the merits of Coleman’s federal claims. There is no doubt that the Virginia Supreme Court’s “consideration” of all filed papers adds some ambiguity, but we simply cannot read it as overriding the court’s explicit grant of a dismissal motion based solely on procedural grounds. Those grounds are independent of federal law.
Coleman contends also that the procedural bar was not adequate to support the judgment. Coleman did not petition for certiorari on this question, and we therefore accept the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the bar was adequate. See
IV
In Daniels v. Allen, the companion case to Brown v. Allen,
Fay v. Noia,
Our cases after Fay that have considered the effect of state procedural default on federal habeas review have taken a markedly different view of the important interests served by state procedural rules. Francis v. Henderson,
The Francis Court noted the important interests served by the pretrial objection requirement of Rule 12(b)(2) and the parallel state rule: the possible avoidance of an unnecessary trial or of a retrial, the difficulty of making factual determinations concerning grand juries long after the indictment has been handed down and the grand jury disbanded, and the potential disruption to numerous convictions of finding a defect
“If, as Davis held, the federal courts must give effect to these important and legitimate concerns in § 2255 proceedings, then surely considerations of comity and federalism require that they give no less effect to the same clear interests when asked to overturn state criminal convictions. These considerations require that recognition be given ‘to the legitimate interests of both State and National Governments, and . . . [that] the National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always [endeavor] to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States.’ Younger v. Harris,401 U. S. 37 , 44. ‘Plainly the interest in finality is the same with regard to both federal and state prisoners. .. . There is no reason to . . . give greater preclu-sive effect to procedural defaults by federal defendants than to similar defaults by state defendants. To hold otherwise would reflect an anomalous and erroneous view of federal-state relations.’ Kaufman v. United States,394 U. S. 217 , 228.” Francis,425 U. S., at 541-542 .
We held that Francis’ claim was barred in federal habeas unless he could establish cause and prejudice. Id., at 542.
Wainwright v. Sykes,
In so holding, Sykes limited Fay to its facts. The cause and prejudice standard in federal habeas evinces far greater respect for state procedural rules than does the deliberate bypass standard of Fay. These incompatible rules are based on very different conceptions of comity and of the importance of finality in state criminal litigation. See Hill, The Forfeiture of Constitutional Rights in Criminal Cases, 78 Colum. L. Rev. 1050, 1053-1059 (1978). In Sykes, we left open the question whether the deliberate bypass standard still applied to a situation like that in Fay, where a petitioner has surrendered entirely his right to appeal his state conviction. Sykes,
Our cases since Sykes have been unanimous in applying the cause and prejudice standard. Engle v. Isaac,
Recognizing that the writ of habeas corpus “is a bulwark against convictions that violate fundamental fairness,” we
“As Justice Harlan once observed, ‘[b]oth the individual criminal defendant and society have an interest in insuring that there will at some point be the certainty that comes with an end to litigation, and that attention will ultimately be focused not on whether a conviction was free from error but rather on whether the prisoner can be restored to a useful place in the community.’ Sanders v. United States,373 U. S. 1 , 24-25 (1963) (dissenting opinion).” Id., at 127.
Moreover, “[f]ederal intrusions into state criminal trials frustrate both the States’ sovereign power to punish offenders and their good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights.” Id., at 128. These costs are particularly high, we explained, when a state prisoner, through a procedural default, prevents adjudication of his constitutional claims in state court. Because these costs do not depend on the type of claim the prisoner raised, we reaffirmed that a state procedural default of any federal claim will bar federal habeas unless the petitioner demonstrates cause and actual prejudice. Id., at 129. We also explained in Engle that the cause and prejudice standard will be met in those cases where review of a state prisoner’s claim is necessary to correct “a fundamental miscarriage of justice.” Id., at 135. See also Murray v. Carrier,
In Carrier, we applied the cause and prejudice standard to a petitioner’s failure to raise a particular claim in his state
“A State’s procedural rules serve vital purposes at trial, on appeal, and on state collateral attack. . . .
“. . . ‘Each State’s complement of procedural rules . . . channels], to the extent possible, the resolution of various types of questions to the stage of the judicial process at which they can be resolved most fairly and efficiently.’ [Reed v. Ross,468 U. S. 1 , 10 (1984).] . . . Failure to raise a claim on appeal reduces the finality of appellate proceedings, deprives the appellate court of an opportunity to review trial error, and ‘undercuts] the State’s ability to enforce its procedural rules.’ Engle,456 U. S., at 129 .” Id., at 490-491.
In Carrier, as in Sykes, we left open the question whether Fay’s deliberate bypass standard continued to apply under the facts of that case, where a state prisoner has defaulted his entire appeal. See Carrier, supra, at 492; Sykes, supra, at 88, n. 12. We are now required to answer this question. By filing late, Coleman defaulted his entire state collateral appeal. This was no doubt an inadvertent error, and respondent concedes that Coleman did not “understandingly and knowingly” forgo the privilege of state collateral appeal. See Fay,
In Harris, we described in broad terms the application of the cause and prejudice standard, hinting strongly that Fay had been superseded:
“Under Sykes and its progeny, an adequate and independent finding of procedural default will bar federal ha-beas review of the federal claim, unless the habeas petitioner can show ‘cause’ for the default and ‘prejudiceattributable thereto,' Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478 , 485 (1986), or demonstrate that failure to consider the federal claim will result in a ‘ “ ‘fundamental miscarriage of justice.”” Id., at 495, quoting Engle v. Isaac,456 U. S. 107 , 135 (1982). See also Smith v. Murray,477 U. S. 527 , 537 (1986).” Harris,489 U. S., at 262 .
We now make it explicit: In all cases in which a state prisoner has defaulted his federal claims in state court pursuant to an independent and adequate state procedural rule, federal habeas review of the claims is barred unless the prisoner can demonstrate cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law, or demonstrate that failure to consider the claims will result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Fay was based on a conception of federal/state relations that undervalued the importance of state procedural rules. The several cases after Fay that applied the cause and prejudice standard to a variety of state procedural defaults represent a different view. We now recognize the important interest in finality served by state procedural rules, and the significant harm to the States that results from the failure of federal courts to respect them. Cf. McCleskey v. Zant,
Carrier applied the cause and prejudice standard to the failure to raise a particular claim on appeal. There is no reason that the same standard should not apply to a failure to appeal at all. All of the State’s interests —in channeling the resolution of claims to the most appropriate forum, in finality, and in having an opportunity to correct its own errors — are implicated whether a prisoner defaults one claim or all of them. A federal court generally should not interfere in either case. By applying the cause and prejudice standard uniformly to all independent and adequate state procedural
We also eliminate inconsistency between the respect federal courts show for state procedural rules and the respect they show for their own. This Court has long understood the vital interest served by federal procedural rules, even when they serve to bar federal review of constitutional claims. In Yakus v. United States,
“No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it.” Id., at 444.
In Browder v. Director, Illinois Dept. of Corrections,
“This 30-day time limit is ‘mandatory and jurisdictional.’ The purpose of the rule is clear: It is ‘to set a definite point of time when litigation should be at an end, unless within that time the prescribed application has been made; and if it has not been, to advise prospective appel-lees that they are freed of the appellant’s demands. Any other construction of the statute would defeat its purpose.’ Matton Steamboat [Co. v. Murphy,319 U. S. 412 , 415 (1943)].” Browder, supra, at 264 (citations omitted).
No less respect should be given to state rules of procedure. See Francis,
A
Coleman maintains that there was cause for his default. The late filing was, he contends, the result of attorney error of sufficient magnitude to excuse the default in federal habeas.
Murray v. Carrier considered the circumstances under which attorney error constitutes cause. Carrier argued that his attorney’s inadvertence in failing to raise certain claims in his state appeal constituted cause for the default sufficient to allow federal habeas review. We rejected this claim, explaining that the costs associated with an ignorant or inadvertent procedural default are no less than where the failure to raise a claim is a deliberate strategy: It deprives the state courts of the opportunity to review trial errors. When a federal habeas court hears such a claim, it undercuts the State’s ability to enforce its procedural rules just as surely as when the default was deliberate.
Applying the Carrier rule as stated, this case is at an end. There is no constitutional right to an attorney in state post-conviction proceedings. Pennsylvania v. Finley,
Coleman attempts to avoid this reasoning by arguing that Carrier does not stand for such a broad proposition. He contends that Carrier applies by its terms only in those situations where it is possible to state a claim for ineffective assistance of counsel. Where there is no constitutional right to counsel, Coleman argues, it is enough that a petitioner demonstrate that his attorney’s conduct would meet the Strickland standard, even though no independent Sixth Amendment claim is possible.
This argument is inconsistent not only with the language of Carrier, but with the logic of that opinion as well. We explained clearly that “cause” under the cause and prejudice test must be something external to the petitioner, something that cannot fairly be attributed to him: “[W]e think that the existence of cause for a procedural default must ordinarily turn on whether the prisoner can show that some objective factor external to the defense impeded counsel’s efforts to comply with the State’s procedural rule.”
Attorney ignorance or inadvertence is not “cause” because the attorney is the petitioner’s agent when acting, or failing to act, in furtherance of the litigation, and the petitioner must “bear the risk of attorney error.” Id., at 488. See Link v. Wabash R. Co.,
Where a petitioner defaults a claim as a result of the denial of the right to effective assistance of counsel, the State, which is responsible for the denial as a constitutional matter, must bear the cost of any resulting default and the harm to state interests.that federal habeas review entails. A different allocation of costs is appropriate in those circumstances where the State has no responsibility to ensure that the petitioner was represented by competent counsel. As between the State and the petitioner, it is the petitioner who must bear- the burden of a failure to follow state procedural rules. In the absence of a constitutional violation, the petitioner bears the risk in federal habeas for all attorney errors made in the course of the representation, as Carrier says explicitly.
Among the claims Coleman brought in state habeas, and then again in federal habeas, is ineffective assistance of counsel during trial, sentencing, and appeal. Coleman contends that, at least as to these claims, attorney error in state ha-beas must constitute cause. This is because, under Virginia law at the time of Coleman’s trial and direct appeal, ineffective assistance of counsel claims related to counsel’s conduct during trial or appeal could be brought only in state habeas. See Walker v. Mitchell,
We reiterate that counsel’s ineffectiveness will constitute cause only if it is an independent constitutional violation. Finley and Giarratano established that there is no right to counsel in state collateral proceedings. For Coleman to prevail, therefore, there must be an exception to the rule of Finley and Giarratano in those cases where state collateral review is the first place a prisoner can present a challenge to his conviction. • We need not answer this question broadly, however, for one state court has addressed Coleman’s claims: the state habeas trial court. The effectiveness of Coleman’s counsel before that court is not at issue here. Coleman contends that it was the ineffectiveness of his counsel during the appeal from that determination that constitutes cause to excuse his default. We thus need to decide only whether Coleman had a constitutional right to counsel on appeal from the state habeas trial court judgment. We conclude that he did not.
Douglas v. California,
Coleman has had his “one and only appeal,” if that is what a state collateral proceeding may be considered; the Buchanan County Circuit Court, after a 2-day evidentiary hearing, addressed Coleman’s claims of trial error, including his ineffective assistance of counsel claims. What Coleman requires here is a right to counsel on appeal from that determination. Our case law will not support it.
In Ross v. Moffitt,
These cases dictate the answer here. Given that a criminal defendant has no right to counsel beyond his first appeal in pursuing state discretionary or collateral review, it would defy logic for us to hold that Coleman had a right to counsel
Because Coleman had no right to counsel to pursue his appeal in state habeas, any attorney error that led to the default of Coleman’s claims in state court cannot constitute cause to excuse the default in federal habeas. As Coleman does not argue in this Court that federal review of his claims is necessary to prevent a fundamental miscarriage of justice, he is barred from bringing these claims in federal habeas. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Notes
This rule does not apply if the petitioner failed to exhaust state remedies and the court to which the petitioner would be required to present his claims in order to meet the exhaustion requirement would now find the claims procedurally barred. In such a case there is a procedural default for purposes of federal habeas regardless of the decision of the last state court to which the petitioner actually presented his claims. See Harris v. Reed,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring.
I concur in the judgment of the Court and I join in its opinion, but add a few words concerning what occurred below. Harris v. Reed,
But the state court did not grant the State’s explicit request for an early ruling on the motion. Instead, the court delayed ruling on the motion to dismiss, and hence briefs on both the motion and the merits were filed. Six months later, the court “upon consideration whereof” granted the State’s motion to dismiss the appeal. Hence petitioner’s argument that the court studied the merits of the federal claims to determine whether to waive the procedural default, found those claims lacking, and only then granted the motion to dismiss; it is as though the court had said that it was granting the motion to dismiss the appeal as untimely because the federal
The predicate for this argument is that on occasion the Virginia Supreme Court waives the untimeliness rule. If that were true, the rule would not be an adequate and independent state ground barring direct or habeas review. Cf. Ake v. Oklahoma,
Petitioner argues that the Virginia court does in fact waive the rule on occasion, but I am not now convinced that there is a practice of waiving the rule when constitutional issues are at stake, even fundamental ones. The evidence is too scanty to permit a conclusion that the rule is no longer an adequate and independent state ground barring federal review. The fact that merits briefs were filed and were considered by the court, without more, does not justify a different conclusion.
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Marshall and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
Federalism; comity; state sovereignty; preservation of state resources; certainty: The majority methodically inventories these multifarious state interests before concluding that the plain-statement rule of Michigan v. Long,
I
The Court cavalierly claims that “[t]his is a case about federalism,” ante, at 726, and proceeds without explanation to assume that the purposes of federalism are advanced whenever a federal court refrains from reviewing an ambiguous state-court judgment. Federalism, however, has no inherent normative value: It does not, as the majority appears to assume, blindly protect the interests of States from any incursion by the federal courts. Rather, federalism secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power. “Federalism is a device for realizing the concepts of decency and fairness which are among the fundamental principles of liberty and justice lying at the base of all our civil and political institutions.” Brennan, Federal Habeas Corpus and State Prisoners: An Exercise in Federalism, 7 Utah L. Rev. 423, 442 (1961). See also The Federalist No. 51, p. 324 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison) (“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society”). In this context, it cannot lightly be assumed that the interests of federalism are fostered by a rule that impedes federal review of federal constitutional claims.
Moreover, the form of federalism embraced by today’s majority bears little resemblance to that adopted by the Framers of the Constitution and ratified by the original States. The majority proceeds as if the sovereign interests of the States and the Federal Government were coequal. Ours, however, is a federal republic, conceived on the principle of a supreme federal power and constituted first and foremost of citizens, not of sovereign States. The citizens expressly declared: “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States
Federal habeas review of state-court judgments, respectfully employed to safeguard federal rights, is no invasion of state sovereignty. Cf. Ex parte Virginia,
“Insofar as [federal habeas] jurisdiction enables federal district courts to entertain claims that State Supreme Courts have denied rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, it is not a case of a lower court sitting in judgment on a higher court. It is merely one aspect of respecting the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution whereby federal law is higher than State law.”
Thus, the considered exercise by federal courts — in vindication of fundamental constitutional rights — of the habeas jurisdiction conferred on them by Congress exemplifies the full expression of this Nation’s federalism.
From these noble beginnings, the Court has managed to transform the duty to protect federal rights into a self-fashioned abdication. Defying the constitutional allocation
II
Even if one acquiesced in the majority s unjustifiable elevation of abstract federalism over fundamental precepts of liberty and fairness, the Court’s conclusion that the plain-statement rule of Michigan v. Long does not apply to a summary order defies both settled understandings and compassionate reason.
A
As an initial matter, it cannot seriously be disputed that the Court’s opinion in Harris v. Reed,
The majority asserts that these statements establish a factual predicate for the application of the plain-statement rule. Ante, at 735-736. Neither opinion, however, purported to limit the application of the plain-statement rule to the narrow
The Harris Court expressed its understanding of Long unequivocally: “We held in Long that unless the state court clearly expressed its reliance on an adequate and independent state-law ground, this Court may address a federal issue considered by the state court.”
Justice O’Connor, in a concurring opinion joined by The Chief Justice and Justice Scalia, echoed the majority’s indication that the Long presumption applied to all cases where a federal claim is presented to the state courts. She wrote separately to emphasize that the Court’s opinion did not alter the well-settled rule that federal courts may look to state procedural-default rules in determining whether a federal claim has been properly exhausted in the state courts. See
That Harris’ adoption of the plain-statement rule for federal habeas cases was intended to apply to all cases where
B
Notwithstanding the clarity of the Court’s holding in Harris, the majority asserts that Coleman has read the rule- announced therein “out of context.” Ante, at 736. I submit, however, that it is the majority that has wrested Harris out of the context of a preference for the vindication of fundamental constitutional rights and that has set it down in a vacuum of rhetoric about federalism. In its attempt to justify a blind abdication of responsibility by the federal courts, the majority’s opinion marks the nadir of the Court’s recent ha-beas jurisprudence, where the discourse of rights is routinely replaced with the functional dialect of interests. The Court’s habeas jurisprudence now routinely, and without evident reflection, subordinates fundamental constitutional rights to
It is well settled that the existence of a state procedural default does not divest a federal court of jurisdiction on collateral review. See Wainwright v. Sykes,
In justifying its new rule, the majority first announces that, as a practical matter, the application of the Long presumption to a summary order entered in a case where a state
The majority claims that applying the plain-statement rule to summary orders “would place burdens on the States and state courts,” ante, at 738, suggesting that these burdens are borne independently by the States and their courts. The State, according to the majority, “pays the price” for federal review of state prisoner claims “in terms of the uncertainty and delay” as well as in the cost of a retrial. Id., at 738-739. The majority is less clear about the precise contours of the burden this rule is said to place on state courts, merely asserting that it “would also put too great a burden on the state courts.” Ante, at 739.
The majority’s attempt to distinguish between the interests of state courts and the interests of the States in this
Even if the majority correctly attributed the relevant state interests, they are, nonetheless, misconceived. The majority appears most concerned with the financial burden that a retrial places on the States. Of course, if the initial trial conformed to the mandate of the Federal Constitution, not even the most probing federal review would necessitate a retrial. Thus, to the extent the State must “pay the price” of retrying a state prisoner, that price is incurred as a direct result of the State’s failure scrupulously to honor his federal rights, not as a consequence of unwelcome federal review. See Teague v. Lane,
C
Not only is the majority’s abandonment of the plain-statement rule for purposes of summary orders unjustified, it is also misguided. In Long, the Court adopted the plain-statement rule because we had “announced a number of principles in order to help us determine” whether ambiguous state-court judgments rested on adequate and independent state grounds, but had “not developed a satisfying and consistent approach for resolving this vexing issue.”
The Court’s decisions in this case and in Ylst v. Nunne-maker, post, p. 797, well reveal the illogic of the ad hoc approach. In this case, to determine whether the admittedly ambiguous state-court judgment rests on an adequate and independent state ground, the Court looks to the “nature of the disposition” and the “surrounding circumstances” that “indicate]” that the basis [of the decision] was procedural default. Ylst, post, at 802. This method of searching for “clues” to the meaning of a facially ambiguous order is inherently indeterminate. Tellingly, both the majority and concurring opinions in this case concede that it remains uncertain whether the state court relied on a procedural default. See ante, at 744 (“There is no doubt that the Virginia Supreme Court’s ‘consideration’ of all filed papers adds some ambiguity”); ante, at 757-758 (White, J., concurring) (“[I]t is as though the court had said that it was granting the motion to dismiss the appeal as untimely because the federal claims were untenable and provided the court no reason to waive the default”). The plain-statement rule effectively and equitably eliminates this unacceptable uncertainty. I cannot condone the abandonment of such a rule when the result is to foreclose federal habeas review of federal claims based on conjecture as to the “meaning” of an unexplained order.
The Court’s decision in Ylst demonstrates that we are destined to relive the period where we struggled to develop principles to guide the interpretation of ambiguous state-court orders. In Ylst, the last state court to render a judgment on Nunnemaker’s federal claims was the California Supreme Court. Nunnemaker had filed a petition for habeas corpus in that court, invoking its original jurisdiction. Accordingly,
The Ylst Court demonstrates the employment of the presumption by simply ignoring the judgment of the highest court of California, and by looking back to an intermediate court judgment rendered 12 years earlier to conclude that Nunnemaker’s federal claims have been procedurally defaulted. In so concluding, the Court determines that an intervening order by the California Supreme Court, which, with citations to two state-court decisions, denied Nunne-maker’s earlier petition invoking the court’s original jurisdiction, is not “informative with respect to the question,” post, at 805, whéther a state court has considered the merits of Nunnemaker’s claims since the procedural default was recognized. Thus, the Court dismisses two determinations of the California Supreme Court, rendered not in review of an earlier state-court judgment but as an exercise of its original jurisdiction, because it finds those determinations not “informative. ” While the Court may comfort itself by labeling this exercise “look[ing] through,” see post, at 804, it cannot be disputed that the practice represents disrespect for the State’s determination of how best to structure its mechanisms for seeking postconviction relief.
Ill
Having abandoned the plain-statement rule with respect to a summary order, the majority must consider Coleman’s argument that the untimely filing of his notice of appeal was the result of attorney error of sufficient magnitude as to constitute cause for his procedural default. In a sleight of logic that would be ironic if not for its tragic consequences, the majority concludes that a state prisoner pursuing state collateral relief must bear the risk of his attorney’s grave errors — even if the result of those errors is that the prisoner will be executed without having presented his federal claims to a federal court — because this attribution of risk represents the appropriate “allocation of costs.” Ante, at 754. Whether unprofessional attorney conduct in a state postconviction proceeding should bar federal habeas review of a state prisoner’s
The majority first contends that this Court’s decision in Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478 (1986), expressly resolves this issue. Of course, that cannot be so, as the procedural default at issue in Murray occurred on direct review, not collateral attack, and this Court has no authority to resolve issues not before it. Moreover, notwithstanding the majority’s protestations to the contrary, the language of Murray strongly suggests that the Court’s resolution of the issue would have been the same regardless of when the procedural default occurred. The Court in Murray explained: “A State’s procedural rules serve vital purposes at trial, on appeal, and on state collateral attack.”
The rule foreshadowed by this language, which the majority today evades, most faithfully adheres to a principled view of the role of federal habeas jurisdiction. As noted above, federal courts forgo the exercise of their habeas jurisprudence over claims that are procedurally barred out of respect for the state interests served by those rules. Recognition of
The majority’s conclusion that Coleman’s allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel, if true, would not excuse a procedural default that occurred in the state postconviction proceeding is particularly disturbing because, at the time of Coleman’s appeal, state law precluded defendants from raising certain claims on direct appeal. As the majority acknowledges, under state law as it existed at the time of Coleman’s trial and appeal, Coleman could raise his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim with respect to counsel’s conduct during trial and appeal only in state habeas. Ante, at 755. This Court has made clear that the Fourteenth Amendment obligates a State “‘to assure the indigent defendant an adequate opportunity to present his claims fairly in the context of the State’s appellate process,’” Pennsylvania v. Finley,
Ultimately, the Court’s determination that ineffective assistance of counsel cannot constitute cause of a procedural default in a state postconviction proceeding is patently unfair. In concluding that it was not inequitable to apply the cause and prejudice standard to procedural defaults that occur on appeal, the Murray Court took comfort in the “additional safeguard against miscarriages of justice in criminal cases”: the right to effective assistance of counsel.
I dissent.