Cite as: 513 U. S. 374 (1995)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
we held that Fourth Amendment claims are not ordinarily cognizable in federal habeas proceedings and distinguished several cases by noting that "the issue of the substantive scope of the writ was not presented in the petition[s] for certiorari." Id., at 481, n. 15. We thus recognized that those decisions properly avoided the question of cognizability, which question, of course, is logically anterior to the merits of the Fourth Amendment claims presented. In Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204, 211 (1981), we held that the Government had conceded that the petitioner had a Fourth Amendment interest in the searched home, an inquiry that precedes the question that was preserved, whether the search was reasonable. In Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc., 500 U. S. 90, 97, n. 4 (1991), because the question was neither litigated below nor included in the petition, we assumed the existence of a cause of action under § 20(a) of the Investment Company Act of 1940 before addressing the requirements of such an action. See also Burks v. Lasker, 441 U. S. 471, 476 (1979) (assuming same). Finally, in McCormick v. United States, 500 U. S. 257 (1991), the Court held that a state legislator did not violate the anti-extortion Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1951, by accepting campaign contributions without an explicit exchange of improper promises. The Court reached this question only after declining to consider whether the Act applies to local officials at all, because that question was neither argued below nor included in the petition for certiorari. McCormick, 500 U. S., at 268, n. 6; see also id., at 280 (Scalia, J., concurring) (accepting the assumption, because the argument was waived, that the Hobbs Act is a "federal 'payment for official action' statute" even though "I think it well to bear in mind that the statute may not exist").
The Court does not take issue with these cases but argues further that, because the question whether Amtrak is a Government entity is "dependent upon many of the same factual inquiries [as the clearly presented question], refusing to re-
405
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