Cite as: 507 U. S. 680 (1993)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
IV
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice O'Connor, with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Today the Court permits the federal courts to overturn on habeas the conviction of a double murderer, not on the basis of an inexorable constitutional or statutory command, but because it believes the result desirable from the standpoint of equity and judicial administration. Because the principles that inform our habeas jurisprudence—finality, federalism, and fairness—counsel decisively against the result the Court reaches, I respectfully dissent from this holding.
I
The Court does not sit today in direct review of a state-court judgment of conviction. Rather, respondent seeks relief by collaterally attacking his conviction through the writ of habeas corpus. While petitions for the writ of habeas corpus are now commonplace—over 12,000 were filed in 1990, compared to 127 in 1941—their current ubiquity ought not detract from the writ's historic importance. See L. Mecham, Annual Report of the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts 191 (1991) (1990 figures); Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 446, n. 2 (1963) (Clark, J., dissenting) (1941 figures). "The Great Writ" can be traced through the common law to well before the founding of this Nation; its role as a "prompt and efficacious remedy for whatever society deems to be intolerable restraints" is beyond question. Fay, 372 U. S., at 401-402. As Justice Harlan explained:
"Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is today, as it has always been, a fundamental safeguard against unlawful
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