524
Opinion of the Court
We have never had occasion to consider whether a federal court should resolve a State's contention that a petitioner's claim is procedurally barred before considering whether his claim is Teague barred. Our opinions, however—most particularly, Coleman—certainly suggest that the procedural-bar issue should ordinarily be considered first. It was speculated at oral argument that the Court of Appeals may have resolved the Teague issue without first considering procedural bar because our opinions have stated that the Teague retroactivity decision is to be made as a "threshold matter." E. g., Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 U. S. 302, 329 (1989); Caspari v. Bohlen, 510 U. S. 383, 389 (1994). That simply means, however, that the Teague issue should be addressed "before considering the merits of [a] claim." 510 U. S., at 389. It does not mean that the Teague inquiry is antecedent to consideration of the general prerequisites for federal habeas corpus which are unrelated to the merits of the particular claim— such as the requirement that the petitioner be "in custody," see 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a), or that the state-court judgment not be based on an independent and adequate state ground. Constitutional issues are generally to be avoided, and as even a cursory review of this Court's new-rule cases reveals (including our discussion in Part IV, infra), the Teague inquiry requires a detailed analysis of federal constitutional law. See, e. g., Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 233-241 (1990); Penry, supra, at 316-319; Gilmore v. Taylor, 508 U. S. 333, 339-344 (1993); Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 488-494 (1990).
We are somewhat puzzled that the Eleventh Circuit, after having held proceedings in abeyance while petitioner brought his claim in state court, did not so much as mention the Florida Supreme Court's determination that Lambrix's Espinosa claim was procedurally barred. The State of Florida raised that point before both the District Court and the Court of Appeals, going so far as to reiterate it in a postjudg-
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