OPINION OF THE COURT
RHINES V. WEBER
544 U. S. ____ (2005)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
NO. 03-9046
CHARLES RUSSELL RHINES, PETITIONER
v.
DOUGLAS WEBER, WARDEN
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the eighth circuit
[March 30, 2005]
Justice O’Connor delivered the
opinion of the Court.
We confront here the problem of a
“mixed” petition for habeas corpus relief in which a state prisoner
presents a federal court with a single petition containing some
claims that have been exhausted in the state courts and some that
have not. More precisely, we consider whether a federal district
court has discretion to stay the mixed petition to allow the
petitioner to present his unexhausted claims to the state court in
the first instance, and then to return to federal court for review
of his perfected petition.
I
Petitioner Charles Russell Rhines
was convicted in South Dakota state court of first-degree murder
and third-degree burglary and sentenced to death. His conviction
became final on December 2, 1996, when we denied his initial
petition for certiorari.
Rhines v.
South Dakota,
519 U. S. 1013.
On December 5, 1996, Rhines filed a petition for state habeas
corpus. App. 32. The state court denied his petition, and the
Supreme Court of South Dakota affirmed on February 9, 2000,
Rhines v.
Weber, 2002 SD 19, 608 N. W. 2d
303. Rhines filed his
pro se petition for federal habeas
corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2254 in the United States
District Court for the District of South Dakota on February 22,
2000. App. 3. Because the 1-year statute of limitations imposed by
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)
was tolled while Rhines’ state habeas corpus petition was pending,
see 28 U. S. C. §2244(d)(2), he still had more than 11 months
left before the expiration of the limitations period.
With the assistance of
court-appointed counsel, Rhines filed an amended petition for writ
of habeas corpus and statement of exhaustion on November 20, 2000,
asserting 35 claims of constitutional defects in his conviction and
sentence. App. 39–60. The State challenged 12 of those claims as
unexhausted.
Id., at 72–79. On July 3, 2002, approximately
18 months after Rhines had filed his amended federal habeas corpus
petition, the District Court held that 8 of the 35 claims had not
been exhausted. At this time, the AEDPA 1-year statute of
limitations had run. See
Duncan v.
Walker,
533 U. S. 167,
181–182 (2001) (holding that the statute of limitations is not
tolled during the pendancy of a federal petition). As a result, if
the District Court had dismissed Rhines’ mixed petition at that
point, he would have been unable to refile in federal court after
exhausting the unexhausted claims. Rhines therefore moved the
District Court to hold his pending habeas petition in abeyance
while he presented his unexhausted claims to the South Dakota
courts. On July 3, 2002, the District Court granted the motion and
issued a stay “conditioned upon petitioner commencing state court
exhaustion proceedings within sixty days of this order and
returning to this court within sixty days of completing such
exhaustion.” App. 136. In compliance with that order, Rhines filed
his second state habeas corpus petition on August 22, 2003.
The State appealed the District Court’s stay
of Rhines’ mixed petition to the United States Court of Appeals for
the Eighth Circuit. Relying on its decision in
Akins v.
Kenney, 341 F. 3d 681, 686 (2003) (holding that “a
district court has no authority to hold a habeas petition
containing unexhausted claims in abeyance absent truly exceptional
circumstances” (internal quotation marks omitted)), the Court of
Appeals vacated the stay and remanded the case to the District
Court to determine whether Rhines could proceed by deleting
unexhausted claims from his petition. 346 F. 3d 799 (2003). We
granted certiorari to resolve a split in the Circuits regarding the
propriety of the District Court’s “stay-and-abeyance” procedure.
542 U. S. ___ (2004). Compare,
e.g.,
Crews v.
Horn, 360 F. 3d 146, 152 (CA3 2004); and
Zarvela v.
Artuz, 254 F. 3d 374, 381 (CA2
2001), with 346 F. 3d 799 (2003) (case below).
II
Fourteen years before Congress
enacted AEDPA, we held in
Rose v.
Lundy,
455 U. S. 509 (1982),
that federal district courts may not adjudicate mixed petitions for
habeas corpus, that is, petitions containing both exhausted and
unexhausted claims. We reasoned that the interests of comity and
federalism dictate that state courts must have the first
opportunity to decide a petitioner’s claims.
Id., at
518–519. We noted that “[b]ecause ‘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.”
Id., at 518 (quoting
Darr v.
Burford,
339 U. S. 200, 204
(1950)). That doctrine “ ‘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.’ ” 455 U. S., at 518.
Accordingly, we imposed a
requirement of “total exhaustion” and directed federal courts to
effectuate that requirement by dismissing mixed petitions without
prejudice and allowing petitioners to return to state court to
present the unexhausted claims to that court in the first instance.
Id., at 522. When we decided
Lundy, there was no
statute of limitations on the filing of federal habeas corpus
petitions. As a result, petitioners who returned to state court to
exhaust their previously unexhausted claims could come back to
federal court to present their perfected petitions with relative
ease. See
Slack v.
McDaniel,
529 U. S. 473, 486
(2000) (dismissal without prejudice under
Lundy
“contemplated that the prisoner could return to federal court after
the requisite exhaustion”).
The enactment of AEDPA in 1996 dramatically
altered the landscape for federal habeas corpus petitions. AEDPA
preserved
Lundy’s total exhaustion requirement, see 28 U.
S. C. §2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of habeas
corpus . . . shall not be granted unless it appears that . .
. the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the
courts of the State”), but it also imposed a 1-year statute of
limitations on the filing of federal petitions, §2244(d). Although
the limitations period is tolled during the pendency of a “properly
filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral
review,” §2244(d)(2), the filing of a petition for habeas corpus in
federal court does not toll the statute of limitations,
Duncan,
supra, at 181–182.
As a result of the interplay between AEDPA’s
1-year statute of limitations and
Lundy’s dismissal
requirement, petitioners who come to federal court with “mixed”
petitions run the risk of forever losing their opportunity for any
federal review of their unexhausted claims. If a petitioner files a
timely but mixed petition in federal district court, and the
district court dismisses it under
Lundy after the
limitations period has expired, this will likely mean the
termination of any federal review. For example, if the District
Court in this case had dismissed the petition because it contained
unexhausted claims, AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations would
have barred Rhines from returning to federal court after exhausting
the previously unexhausted claims in state court. Similarly, if a
district court dismisses a mixed petition close to the end of the
1-year period, the petitioner’s chances of exhausting his claims in
state court and refiling his petition in federal court before the
limitations period runs are slim. The problem is not limited to
petitioners who file close to the AEDPA deadline. Even a petitioner
who files early will have no way of controlling when the district
court will resolve the question of exhaustion. Thus, whether a
petitioner ever receives federal review of his claims may turn on
which district court happens to hear his case.
We recognize the gravity of this problem and
the difficulty it has posed for petitioners and federal district
courts alike. In an attempt to solve the problem, some district
courts have adopted a version of the “stay-and-abeyance” procedure
employed by the District Court below. Under this procedure, rather
than dismiss the mixed petition pursuant to
Lundy, a
district court might stay the petition and hold it in abeyance
while the petitioner returns to state court to exhaust his
previously unexhausted claims. Once the petitioner exhausts his
state remedies, the district court will lift the stay and allow the
petitioner to proceed in federal court.
District courts do ordinarily have authority
to issue stays, see
Landis v.
North American Co.,
299 U. S. 248,
254 (1936), where such a stay would be a proper exercise of
discretion, see
Clinton v.
Jones,
520 U. S. 681, 706
(1997). AEDPA does not deprive district courts of that authority,
cf. 28 U. S. C. §2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of
habeas corpus . . . shall not be
granted unless it appears
that . . . the applicant has exhausted the remedies
available in the courts of the State” (emphasis added)), but it
does circumscribe their discretion. Any solution to this problem
must therefore be compatible with AEDPA’s purposes.
One of the statute’s purposes is to “reduce
delays in the execution of state and federal criminal sentences,
particularly in capital cases.”
Woodford v.
Garceau, 538 U. S. 202, 206
(2003). See also
Duncan, 533 U. S., at 179. AEDPA’s 1-year
limitations period “quite plainly serves the well-recognized
interest in the finality of state court judgments.”
Ibid.
It “reduces the potential for delay on the road to finality by
restricting the time that a prospective federal habeas petitioner
has in which to seek federal habeas review.”
Ibid.
Moreover, Congress enacted AEDPA against the
backdrop of
Lundy’s total exhaustion requirement. The
tolling provision in §2244(d)(2) “balances the interests served by
the exhaustion requirement and the limitation period,” “by
protecting a state prisoner’s ability later to apply for federal
habeas relief while state remedies are being pursued.”
Duncan,
supra, at 179. AEDPA thus encourages petitioners to seek
relief from state courts in the first instance by tolling the
1-year limitations period while a “properly filed application for
State post-conviction or other collateral review” is pending. 28 U.
S. C. §2244(d)(2). This scheme reinforces the importance of
Lundy’s “simple and clear instruction to potential
litigants: before you bring any claims to federal court, be sure
that you first have taken each one to state court.” 455 U. S., at
520.
Stay and abeyance, if employed too frequently,
has the potential to undermine these twin purposes. Staying a
federal habeas petition frustrates AEDPA’s objective of encouraging
finality by allowing a petitioner to delay the resolution of the
federal proceedings. It also undermines AEDPA’s goal of
streamlining federal habeas proceedings by decreasing a
petitioner’s incentive to exhaust all his claims in state court
prior to filing his federal petition. Cf.
Duncan,
supra, at 180 (“[D]iminution of statutory incentives to
proceed first in state court would . . . increase the risk of the
very piecemeal litigation that the exhaustion requirement is
designed to reduce”).
For these reasons, stay and abeyance should be
available only in limited circumstances. Because granting a stay
effectively excuses a petitioner’s failure to present his claims
first to the state courts, stay and abeyance is only appropriate
when the district court determines there was good cause for the
petitioner’s failure to exhaust his claims first in state court.
Moreover, even if a petitioner had good cause for that failure, the
district court would abuse its discretion if it were to grant him a
stay when his unexhausted claims are plainly meritless. Cf. 28 U.
S. C. §2254(b)(2) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus
may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the
applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the
State”).
Even where stay and abeyance is appropriate,
the district court’s discretion in structuring the stay is limited
by the timeliness concerns reflected in AEDPA. A mixed petition
should not be stayed indefinitely. Though, generally, a prisoner’s
“principal interest . . . is in obtaining speedy federal relief on
his claims,”
Lundy,
supra, at 520 (plurality
opinion), not all petitioners have an incentive to obtain federal
relief as quickly as possible. In particular, capital petitioners
might deliberately engage in dilatory tactics to prolong their
incarceration and avoid execution of the sentence of death. Without
time limits, petitioners could frustrate AEDPA’s goal of finality
by dragging out indefinitely their federal habeas review. Thus,
district courts should place reasonable time limits on a
petitioner’s trip to state court and back. See,
e.g.,
Zarvela, 254 F. 3d, at 381 (“[District courts] should
explicitly condition the stay on the prisoner’s pursuing state
court remedies within a brief interval, normally 30 days, after the
stay is entered and returning to federal court within a similarly
brief interval, normally 30 days after state court exhaustion is
completed”). And if a petitioner engages in abusive litigation
tactics or intentional delay, the district court should not grant
him a stay at all. See
id., at 380–381.
On the other hand, it likely would be an abuse
of discretion for a district court to deny a stay and to dismiss a
mixed petition if the petitioner had good cause for his failure to
exhaust, his unexhausted claims are potentially meritorious, and
there is no indication that the petitioner engaged in intentionally
dilatory litigation tactics. In such circumstances, the district
court should stay, rather than dismiss, the mixed petition. See
Lundy, 455 U. S., at 522 (the total exhaustion requirement
was not intended to “unreasonably impair the prisoner’s right to
relief”). In such a case, the petitioner’s interest in obtaining
federal review of his claims outweighs the competing interests in
finality and speedy resolution of federal petitions. For the same
reason, if a petitioner presents a district court with a mixed
petition and the court determines that stay and abeyance is
inappropriate, the court should allow the petitioner to delete the
unexhausted claims and to proceed with the exhausted claims if
dismissal of the entire petition would unreasonably impair the
petitioner’s right to obtain federal relief. See
id., at
520 (plurality opinion) (“[A petitioner] can always amend the
petition to delete the unexhausted claims, rather than returning to
state court to exhaust all of his claims”).
The Court of Appeals erred to the extent it
concluded that stay and abeyance is always impermissible. We
therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand
the case for that court to determine, consistent with this opinion,
whether the District Court’s grant of a stay in this case
constituted an abuse of discretion.
It is so ordered.
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