330
Opinion of the Court
time to give them the necessary consideration before the scheduled execution"); Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 425- 426 (1993) (O'Connor, J., concurring).
These statements do not help the State, however, for they all involve "second or successive" habeas petitions. The Rules specifically authorize dismissal of those petitions for "abuse of the writ." Habeas Corpus Rule 9(b). See also 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b) (authorizing dismissal when "the applicant has . . . deliberately withheld the newly asserted ground or otherwise abused the writ") (emphasis added). McCleskey gives content to the notion of "abuse of the writ," as do the cases just mentioned. These statements, therefore, reflect an effort to follow and to apply the Habeas Corpus Rules, not an effort to develop law outside the Rules.
Indeed, to try to devise some sensible way of supplementing first federal habeas petition rules with ad hoc equitable devices would prove difficult. As we discussed, supra, at 324, the interest in permitting federal habeas review of a first petition is quite strong. And, given the importance of a first federal habeas petition, it is particularly important that any rule that would deprive inmates of all access to the writ should be both clear and fair. As two prominent bodies charged with developing proposals for habeas law reform have pointed out, developing fair and effective rules to minimize the harms created by last-minute petitions in capital cases is quite complicated, requiring consideration of issues such as the State's control over setting execution dates, the time needed to exhaust state remedies, the common practice of substituting specialized capital counsel for habeas, and the time needed by habeas counsel to investigate claims, some of which (such as ineffective assistance of counsel) often cannot be raised on direct appeal. See ABA Report 26-29, 114-134; id., at 29 ("In a system of review that employs artificial execution dates as a catalyst, there are many eleventh hours and many last minutes, because, if the petitioner does not seek a stay of execution at
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