Cite as: 507 U. S. 680 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
were comparatively great. We reasoned that doing so would not only exclude reliable evidence and divert attention from the central question of guilt, but would also intrude upon the public interest in " '(i) the most effective utilization of limited judicial resources, (ii) the necessity of finality in criminal trials, (iii) the minimization of friction between our federal and state systems of justice, and (iv) the maintenance of the constitutional balance upon which the doctrine of federalism is founded.' " Id., at 491, n. 31 (quoting Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 259 (1973) (Powell, J., concurring)).
Over the years, we have repeatedly declined to extend the
rule in Stone beyond its original bounds. In Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), for example, we denied a request to apply Stone to bar habeas consideration of a Fourteenth Amendment due process claim of insufficient evidence to support a state conviction. We stressed that the issue was "central to the basic question of guilt or innocence," Jackson, 443 U. S., at 323, unlike a claim that a state court had received evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, and we found that to review such a claim on habeas imposed no great burdens on the federal courts. Id., at 321-322.
After a like analysis, in Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S. 545 (1979), we decided against extending Stone to foreclose habeas review of an equal protection claim of racial discrimination in selecting a state grand-jury foreman. A charge that state adjudication had violated the direct command of the Fourteenth Amendment implicated the integrity of the judicial process, we reasoned, Rose, 443 U. S., at 563, and failed to raise the "federalism concerns" that had driven the Court in Stone. 443 U. S., at 562. Since federal courts had granted relief to state prisoners upon proof of forbidden discrimination for nearly a century, we concluded, "confirmation that habeas corpus remains an appropriate vehicle by which federal courts are to exercise their Fourteenth Amendment
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