Withrow v. Williams, 507 U.S. 680, 7 (1993)

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686

WITHROW v. WILLIAMS

Opinion of the Court

II

We have made it clear that Stone's limitation on federal habeas relief was not jurisdictional in nature,3 but rested on prudential concerns counseling against the application of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule on collateral review. See Stone, supra, at 494-495, n. 37; see also Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S. 436, 447 (1986) (opinion of Powell, J.) (discussing equitable principles underlying Stone); Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U. S. 365, 379, n. 4 (1986); Allen v. McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 103 (1980) (Stone concerns "the prudent exercise of federal-court jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 2254"); cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2243 (court entertaining habeas petition shall "dispose of the matter as law and justice require"). We simply concluded in Stone that the costs of applying the exclusionary rule on collateral review outweighed any potential advantage to be gained by applying it there. Stone, supra, at 489-495.

We recognized that the exclusionary rule, held applicable to the States in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), "is not a personal constitutional right"; it fails to redress "the injury to the privacy of the victim of the search or seizure" at issue, "for any '[r]eparation comes too late.' " Stone, supra, at 486 (quoting Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 637 (1965)). The rule serves instead to deter future Fourth Amendment violations, and we reasoned that its application on collateral review would only marginally advance this interest in deterrence. Stone, 428 U. S., at 493. On the other side of the ledger, the costs of applying the exclusionary rule on habeas

in state court, should collateral review of the same claim on a habeas corpus petition be precluded?"), and we see no good reason to address it in this case.

3 Title 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a) provides: "The Supreme Court, a Justice thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court 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."

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