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Syllabus
States, 368 U. S. 424, 428. Reed urges that the Hill standard applies only to federal prisoners under § 2255, not to state prisoners under § 2254. This Court's decisions have recognized, however, that, at least where only statutory violations are at issue, §§ 2254 and 2255 mirror each other in operative effect, see Davis v. United States, 417 U. S. 333, 344; Hill controls collateral review—under both §§ 2254 and 2255—when a federal statute, but not the Constitution, is the basis for the postconviction attack. See, e. g., Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 477, n. 10. There is no reason to afford habeas review to a state prisoner like Reed, who let a time clock run without alerting the trial court, yet deny collateral review to a federal prisoner similarly situated. Pp. 341-346, 353-355.
Justice Ginsburg, joined by The Chief Justice and Justice O'Connor, concluded in Part II and the final paragraph of Part IV that habeas review is not available to check the trial court's failure to comply with Article IV(c). That failure does not qualify as a "fundamental defect which inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice, [o]r an omission inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of fair procedure." Hill, 368 U. S., at 428. When a defendant obscures Article IV(c)'s time prescription and avoids clear objection until the clock has run, an unwitting judicial slip of the kind involved here ranks with similar nonconstitutional lapses that are not cognizable in a postconviction proceeding. See, e. g., id., at 429. Because Reed did not alert the trial judge to the 120-day period until four days after the period expired, the Court has no cause to consider whether an omission of the kind contemplated in Hill would occur if a state court, presented with a timely request to set a trial date within the IAD's 120-day period, nonetheless refused to comply with Article IV(c). The reservation of that question, together with the IAD's status as both federal law and the law of Indiana, mutes Reed's concern that state courts might be hostile to the federal law here at stake. Pp. 347-352, 355.
Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, agreed that the "fundamental defect" test of Hill v. United States, 368 U. S. 424, 428, is the appropriate standard for evaluating alleged statutory violations under both §§ 2254 and 2255, but concluded that the standard's application is broader than the principal opinion suggests. The class of nonconstitutional procedural rights that are inherently necessary to avoid "a complete miscarriage of justice," or numbered among "the rudimentary demands of fair procedure," is no doubt a small one, if it is not a null set. If there was ever a technical rule, it is the 120-day limit set forth in Article IV(c) of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. Declining to state the obvious produces confusion: Violation of that technicality, whether intentional or unintentional, is no basis for federal habeas relief. Pp. 355-358.
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