Cite as: 517 U. S. 314 (1996)
Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in judgment
petition's merits. But if, as in this case, the petitioner instead files an "eleventh hour" federal habeas petition, the customary principles must be revised accordingly. The district court may feel that it simply does not have time before the date of execution to adequately consider the merits of petitioner's claims, and will naturally be disposed, as the District Court was here, to enter a stay to enable it to do so.1 In so doing, the district court sets aside a scheduled state execution of sentence, imposed by a presumptively valid final state judgment of conviction, on the basis of a tentative assessment that the judgment violates a federal constitutional right. Unless the eleventh-hour nature of the petition is taken into account, the late filing may induce the federal court to disregard federal-state comity and "frustrate . . . the States' sovereign power to punish offenders," Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 128 (1982), when such interference might have been avoided by timely filing.2 The customary principles must also be revised to account for an attempt by a petitioner to manipulate the district court into granting relief where relief is clearly precluded.
In Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal., 503 U. S. 653 (1992), this Court demonstrated how last-minute or manipulative uses of the stay power constitute equitable grounds which can justify the denial of an application for stay of a state-court order of execution. The Court
1 The Court is not concerned by this prospect because district courts have discretion to "order expansion of the record," authorize discovery, decide "whether to hold an evidentiary hearing," and generally "expedite proceedings." Ante, at 326. These tools are useless, however, when a petitioner deliberately leaves the district court only one day to review a petition's claims.
2 Of course, there may be cases in which the eleventh-hour nature of the petition is attributable to the State's scheduling the execution date before the petitioner may appeal the denial of postconviction relief in a timely manner, not to the petitioner's deliberate refusal to seek relief. I am certain that district courts are capable of distinguishing between the two situations.
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