858
Opinion of the Court
triggered by a death row defendant's request for appointment of counsel, no "habeas corpus proceeding" is "pending" under § 2251, and thus no stay can be entered, until a legally sufficient habeas petition is filed.
The language of these two statutes indicates that the sections refer to the same proceeding. Section 848(q)(4)(B) expressly applies to "any post conviction proceeding under section 2254 or 2255"—the precise "habeas corpus proceeding[s]" that § 2251 involves. The terms "post conviction" and "habeas corpus" also are used interchangeably in legal parlance to refer to proceedings under §§ 2254 and 2255. We thus conclude that the two statutes must be read in pari materia to provide that once a capital defendant invokes his right to appointed counsel, a federal court also has jurisdiction under § 2251 to enter a stay of execution. Because § 2251 expressly authorizes federal courts to stay state-court proceedings "for any matter involved in the habeas corpus proceeding," the exercise of this authority is not barred by the Anti-Injunction Act.
This conclusion by no means grants capital defendants a right to an automatic stay of execution. Section 2251 does not mandate the entry of a stay, but dedicates the exercise of stay jurisdiction to the sound discretion of a federal court. Under ordinary circumstances, a capital defendant presumably will have sufficient time to request the appointment of counsel and file a formal habeas petition prior to his scheduled execution. But the right to counsel necessarily includes a right for that counsel meaningfully to research and present a defendant's habeas claims. Where this opportunity is not afforded, "[a]pproving the execution of a defendant before his [petition] is decided on the merits would clearly be improper." Barefoot, 463 U. S., at 889. On the other hand, if a dilatory capital defendant inexcusably ignores this opportunity and flouts the available processes, a federal court presumably would not abuse its discretion in denying a stay of execution.
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