noting, in a pre-AED-PA case, that exhaustion is not required where “the state procedures do not afford swift vindication” or “state procedural snarls or obstacles preclude an effective state remedy”
How later courts described this case
- noting, in a pre-AED-PA case, that exhaustion is not required where “the state procedures do not afford swift vindication” or “state procedural snarls or obstacles preclude an effective state remedy”
- without exhaustion "state court system would be isolated from federal constitutional issues and would not have an impetus to develop and apply federal constitutional law"
- exhaustion requirement serves policies of "comity, avoidance of piecemeal litigation, economy of judicial energy, and the fullest consideration of a petitioner's claims" and furthers "goal [of having] a petitioner travel through each system [state and federal] only once, at most, in his quest for vindication of alleged constitutional errors"
- requiring exhaustion of all claims raised in habeas petitions in Fifth Circuit
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
THORNBERRY, Circuit Judge,
with whom GODBOLD, Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting:
I fully join in Judge Roney’s dissenting opinion but write separately — and briefly— to emphasize in the strongest terms my disagreement with a per se rule for the district courts. I find it deplorable that this court would fashion a dual system of judicial decision-making in the “mixed petition” context. I certainly agree that, on appeal, we can consider the merits of an exhausted claim, but I cannot subscribe to the shackling of our brethren on the district bench with a rigid standard that, in the name of an illusory state-federal comity, proclaims them less competent than ourselves to exercise sound discretion in these matters.
Today’s decision also limits our review of the merits of exhausted claims, for a mixed petition case decided on the merits of a properly exhausted claim will not reach us unless the district court has either ignored the per se rule or overlooked the presence of an unexhausted claim. Petitioners with meritorious — and exhausted — claims will thus remain unconstitutionally restrained pending a potentially lengthy exhaustion process with regard to other unexhausted-— and perhaps unrelated — claims. I cannot countenance a rule that ties the hands of the district courts and, indirectly, of this court in dealing with violations of fundamental rights.