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Opinion of the Court
standards or directions that should govern the District Judges in the disposition of applications for habeas corpus by prisoners under sentence of State Courts.' " Id., at 496 (quoting Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443, 501-502 (1953) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.)).
After all, equitable rules that guide lower courts reduce uncertainty, avoid unfair surprise, minimize disparate treatment of similar cases, and thereby help all litigants, including the State, whose interests in "finality" such rules often further. See Barefoot, 463 U. S., at 892; Kuhlmann, supra, at 451; Townsend, supra, at 313. See also Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 750 (1991) (barring consideration of claims procedurally defaulted in state court absent cause and prejudice or a fundamental miscarriage of justice); Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 299-316 (1989) (plurality opinion) (barring from habeas proceedings federal claims based on certain "new rules" of constitutional law); Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 522 (1982) ("[A] district court must dismiss habeas petitions containing both unexhausted and exhausted claims").
And the arguments against ad hoc departure from settled rules would seem particularly strong when dismissal of a first habeas petition is at issue. Dismissal of a first federal habeas petition is a particularly serious matter, for that dismissal denies the petitioner the protections of the Great Writ entirely, risking injury to an important interest in human liberty. See Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall. 85, 95 (1869) (the writ "has been for centuries esteemed the best and only sufficient defence of personal freedom"); Withrow, supra, at 700 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (decisions involving limitation of habeas relief "warrant restraint"). Even in the context of "second and successive" petitions—which pose a greater threat to the State's interests in "finality" and are less likely to lead to the discovery of unconstitutional punishments—this Court has created careful rules for dismissal of petitions for abuse of the writ. See McCleskey, supra.
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