322
Opinion of the Court
III
We turn, then, to the main question: Could the Court of Appeals properly dismiss this first habeas petition for special ad hoc "equitable" reasons not encompassed within the framework of Rule 9? We conclude that it could not.
First, the history of the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus reveals, not individual judges dismissing writs for ad hoc reasons, but, rather, the gradual evolution of more formal judicial, statutory, or rules-based doctrines of law. See, e. g., McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 479-489 (1991); Barefoot, supra, at 892; Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S. 436, 451 (1986) (plurality opinion); Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1, 15 (1963); Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293, 313 (1963). In earlier times, the courts followed comparatively simple rules, even occasionally disregarding complex procedural doctrines, such as res judicata, see McCleskey, supra, at 479, as they exercised the writ in light of its most basic purpose, avoiding serious abuses of power by a government, say a king's imprisonment of an individual without referring the matter to a court. See, e. g., L. Yackle, Postconviction Remedies § 4, pp. 9-11 (1981); W. Duker, A Constitutional History of Habeas Corpus 4-6 (1980); W. Church, A Treatise on the Writ of Habeas Corpus §§ 1-46, pp. 2-40 (2d ed. 1893). As the writ has evolved into an instrument that now demands not only conviction by a court of competent jurisdiction, see In re Coy, 127 U. S. 731, 756-758 (1888), but also application of basic constitutional doctrines of fairness, see Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U. S. 236, 243 (1963), Congress, the Rule writers, and the courts have developed more complex procedural principles that regularize and thereby narrow the discretion that individual judges can freely exercise. Those principles seek to maintain the courts' freedom to issue the writ, aptly described as the "highest safeguard of liberty," Smith v. Bennett, 365 U. S. 708, 712 (1961), while at the same time avoiding serious, improper delay, expense, complexity, and interference with a State's interest in the "finality" of
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