366
Blackmun, J., dissenting
1, 4 (1980) (refusing to construe "and laws" as limited to civil rights or equal protection laws); Hague v. CIO, 307 U. S. 496, 525-526 (1939) (§ 1983 "include[s] rights, privileges and immunities secured by the laws of the United States as well as by the Constitution"). Section 1983 was enacted contemporaneously with § 2254, and it shares the common purpose of making the federal courts available for the uniform interpretation and enforcement of federal rights in state settings. There is no reason to read § 1983 as placing statutes on a par with the Constitution, but to read § 2254 as largely indifferent to violations of statutes.
Moreover, at least until today, this Court never had held that a properly preserved claim of a violation of a federal statute should be treated differently in a § 2254 proceeding from a claim of a violation of the Constitution. Nor is there any reason to do so. Congress' decision to apply a federal statute to state criminal proceedings, which ordinarily are the exclusive province of state legislatures, generally should be read to reflect the congressional determination that important national interests are at stake. Where Congress has made this determination, the federal courts should be open to ensure the uniform enforcement and interpretation of these interests.
It should be clear, then, that the distinction drawn in § 2255 between fundamental errors and "omission[s] of the kind contemplated in Hill, Timmreck, or Davis," ante, at 349, simply does not support a distinction in § 2254 between constitutional and statutory violations.
II
Even putting aside any misgivings about the general extension of Hill to § 2254 proceedings, there is a specific, and I believe insurmountable, obstacle to applying this standard to violations of the IAD. In concluding that an "unwitting judicial slip of the kind involved here ranks with the nonconstitutional lapses we have held not cognizable," ante, at 349,
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