Cite as: 510 U. S. 383 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
properly denied leave to intervene in the court below was not fairly included in the question presented. Id., at 32. See also American Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago v. Haroco, Inc., 473 U. S. 606, 608 (1985) (per curiam).
The primary question presented in the petition for a writ of certiorari in this case was "[w]hether the Double Jeopardy Clause . . . should apply to successive non-capital sentence enhancement proceedings." Pet. for Cert. 1. The State argues that answering that question in the affirmative would require the announcement of a new rule of constitutional law in violation of Teague and subsequent cases. We conclude that this issue is a subsidiary question fairly included in the question presented.
The nonretroactivity principle prevents a federal court from granting habeas corpus relief to a state prisoner based on a rule announced after his conviction and sentence became final. See, e. g., Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 227 (1992). A threshold question in every habeas case, therefore, is whether the court is obligated to apply the Teague rule to the defendant's claim. We have recognized that the nonretroactivity principle "is not 'jurisdictional' in the sense that [federal courts] . . . must raise and decide the issue sua sponte." Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U. S. 37, 41 (1990) (emphasis omitted). Thus, a federal court may, but need not, decline to apply Teague if the State does not argue it. See Schiro v. Farley, 510 U. S. 222, 228-229 (1994). But if the State does argue that the defendant seeks the benefit of a new rule of constitutional law, the court must apply Teague before considering the merits of the claim. See Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 466-467 (1993).
In this case, the State argued in the petition, as it had in the courts below and as it does in its brief on the merits, that the nonretroactivity principle barred the relief sought by respondent. In contrast to Yee, which involved a claim that was related but not subsidiary, and Izumi, in which the intervention question was a procedural one wholly divorced
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