Opinion of the Court

433 U.S. 378 U. S. 368 (1964), requires a hearing in a state criminal trial prior to the admission of an inculpatory out-of-court statement by the defendant. It held further that respondent had not lost his right to assert such a claim by failing to object at trial or on direct appeal, since only "exceptional circumstances" of "strategic decisions at trial" can create such a bar to raising federal constitutional claims in a federal habeas action. The court stayed issuance of the writ to allow the state court to hold a hearing on the "voluntariness" of the statements.

Petitioner warden appealed this decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. That court first considered the nature of the right to exclusion of statements made without a knowing waiver of the right to counsel and the right not to incriminate oneself. It noted that Jackson v. Denno, supra, guarantees a right to a hearing on whether a defendant has knowingly waived his rights as described to him in the Miranda warnings, and stated that under Florida law "[t]he burden is on the State to secure [a] prima facie determination of voluntariness, not upon the defendant to demand it." 528 F. 2d 522, 525 (1976).

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The court then directed its attention to the effect on respondent's right of Florida Rule Crim. Proc. 3.190 (i), which it described as "a contemporaneous objection rule" applying to motions to suppress a defendant's inculpatory statements.

5 Rule 3.190 (i):

"Motion to Suppress a Confession or Admissions Illegally Obtained. "(1) Grounds. Upon motion of the defendant or upon its own motion, the court shall suppress any confession or admission obtained illegally from the defendant.

"(2) Time for Filing. The motion to suppress shall be made prior to trial unless opportunity therefor did not exist or the defendant was not aware of the grounds for the motion, but the court in its discretion may entertain the motion or an appropriate objection at the trial.

"(3) Hearing. The court shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to be decided in order to rule on the motion."

It focused on this Court's decisions in Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965); Davis v. United States, 411 U. S. 233 (1973); and Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), and concluded that the failure to comply with the rule requiring objection at the trial would only bar review of the suppression claim where the right to object was deliberately bypassed for reasons relating to trial tactics. The Court of Appeals distinguished our decision in Davis, supra (where failure to comply with a rule requiring pretrial objection to the indictment was found to bar habeas review of the underlying constitutional claim absent showing of cause for the failure and prejudice resulting), for the reason that "[a] major tenet of the Davis decision was that no prejudice was shown" to have resulted from the failure to object. It found that prejudice is "inherent" in any situation, like the present one, where the admissibility of an incriminating statement is concerned. Concluding that "[t]he failure to object in this case cannot be dismissed as a trial tactic, and thus a deliberate by-pass," the court affirmed the District Court order that the State hold a hearing on whether respondent knowingly waived his Miranda rights at the time he made the statements.

The simple legal question before the Court calls for a construction of the language of 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (a), which provides that the federal courts shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus "in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." But, to put it mildly, we do not write on a clean slate in construing this statutory provision. Its earliest counterpart, applicable only

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• For divergent discussions of the historic role of federal habeas corpus, compare: Hart, The Supreme Court, 1958 Term, Foreword: The Time Chart of the Justices, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 84 (1959); Reitz, Federal Habeas Corpus: Impact of an Abortive State Proceeding, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 1315 (1961); Brennan, Federal Habeas Corpus and State Prisoners: An Exer

to prisoners detained by federal authority, is found in the Judiciary Act of 1789. Construing that statute for the Court in Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202 (1830), Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said:

"An imprisonment under a judgment cannot be unlawful, unless that judgment be an absolute nullity; and it is not a nullity if the Court has general jurisdiction of the subject, although it should be erroneous."

See Ex parte Kearney, 7 Wheat. 38 (1822).

In 1867, Congress expanded the statutory language so as to make the writ available to one held in state as well as federal custody. For more than a century since the 1867 amendment, this Court has grappled with the relationship between the classical common-law writ of habeas corpus and the remedy provided in 28 U. S. C. § 2254. Sharp division within the Court has been manifested on more than one aspect of the perplexing problems which have been litigated in this connection. Where the habeas petitioner challenges a final judgment of conviction rendered by a state court, this Court has been called upon to decide no fewer than four different questions, all to a degree interrelated with one another: (1) What types of federal claims may a federal habeas court properly consider? (2) Where a federal claim is cognizable by a federal habeas court, to what extent must that court defer to a resolution of the claim in prior state proceedings? (3) To what extent must the petitioner who seeks federal habeas exhaust state remedies before resorting to the federal court? (4) In what instances will an adequate and independent state

cise in Federalism, 7 Utah L. Rev. 423 (1961); Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv. L. Rev. 441, 468 (1963); Oaks, Legal History in the High Court-Habeas Corpus, 64 Mich. L. Rev. 451 (1966); Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 170-171 (1970); and Note, Developments in the Law-Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038 (1970).

ground bar consideration of otherwise cognizable federal issues on federal habeas review?

Each of these four issues has spawned its share of litigation. With respect to the first, the rule laid down in Ex parte Watkins, supra, was gradually changed by judicial decisions expanding the availability of habeas relief beyond attacks focused narrowly on the jurisdiction of the sentencing court. See Ex parte Wells, 18 How. 307 (1856); Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163 (1874). Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371 (1880), authorized use of the writ to challenge a conviction under a federal statute where the statute was claimed to violate the United States Constitution. Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309 (1915), and Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U. S. 86 (1923), though in large part inconsistent with one another, together broadened the concept of jurisdiction to allow review of a claim of "mob domination" of what was in all other respects a trial in a court of competent jurisdiction.

In Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 463 (1938), an indigent federal prisoner's claim that he was denied the right to counsel at his trial was held to state a contention going to the "power and authority" of the trial court, which might be reviewed on habeas. Finally, in Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101 (1942), the Court openly discarded the concept of jurisdiction-by then more a fiction than anything else—as a touchstone of the availability of federal habeas review, and acknowledged that such review is available for claims of "disregard of the constitutional rights of the accused, and where the writ is the only effective means of preserving his rights." Id., at 104-105. In Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953), it was made explicit that a state prisoner's challenge to the trial court's resolution of dispositive federal issues is always fair game on federal habeas. Only last Term in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), the Court removed from the purview of a federal habeas court challenges resting on the Fourth Amendment, where there has been a full and fair opportunity to raise them

in the state court. See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 250 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring).

The degree of deference to be given to a state court's resolution of a federal-law issue was elaborately canvassed in the Court's opinion in Brown v. Allen, supra. Speaking for the Court, Mr. Justice Reed stated: "[Such] state adjudication carries the weight that federal practice gives to the conclusion of a court of last resort of another jurisdiction on federal constitutional issues. It is not res judicata." 344 U. S., at 458. The duty of the federal habeas court to hold a factfinding hearing in specific situations, notwithstanding the prior resolution of the issues in state court, was thoroughly explored in this Court's later decision in Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963). Congress addressed this aspect of federal habeas in 1966 when it amended § 2254 to deal with the problem treated in Townsend. 80 Stat. 1105. See LaVallee v. Delle Rose, 410 U. S. 690 (1973).

The exhaustion-of-state-remedies requirement was first articulated by this Court in the case of Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241 (1886). There, a staie defendant sought habeas in advance of trial on a claim that he had been indicted under an unconstitutional statute. The writ was dismissed by the District Court, and this Court affirmed, stating that while there was power in the federal courts to entertain such petitions, as a matter of comity they should usually stay their hand pending consideration of the issue in the normal course of the state trial. This rule has been followed in subsequent cases, e. g., Cook v. Hart, 146 U. S. 183 (1892); Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231 (1895); Baker v. Grice, 169 U. S. 284 (1898); Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U. S. 103 (1935), and has been incorporated into the language of § 2254. Like other

728 U. S. C. § 2254:

"(b) An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available