Federal Habeas Corpus and State Procedural Default: An Abstention-Based Interest Analysis.

Congress extended the writ of habeas corpus to the claims of state petitioners in 1867. 1 This act was part of a great shift in the American federal system, a shift that displaced the states as the primary protectors of constitutional rights. 2 "As a result of the new structure of law that emerged in the post-Civil War era -- and especially of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was its centerpiece -- the role of the Federal Government as a guarantor of basic federal rights against state power was clearly established." 3 The change was an especially pronounced one for the federal judiciary which, as a result of the structural reversal, became the primary tool for vindicating federal rights. 4 This structural reversal, or Reconstruction federalism, has thrust state and federal interests into apparent conflict with respect to the federal enforcement of the habeas corpus writ, a conflict accentuated by the Warren Court's expansive push to protect civil liberties. Because of this tension, and a history of judicial discretion in the interpretation of the habeas corpus writ, the Supreme Court has struggled to articulate a substantive and consistent solution to the problem presented by the federal review of habeas corpus claims that are defaulted in state court. Where the Court has felt the need to change its analyses it has done so -- even though the statutory grant of jurisdiction has remained largely unchanged 5 -- by reasoning that it has always employed interpretive freedom in habeas corpus ...