190
Breyer, J., dissenting
"but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense"). Nor does it seem likely that Congress would have expected federal courts applying the tolling provision to construe "post-conviction" review to exclude state "habeas" petitions challenging convictions. The statute in which the words "State post-conviction proceedings" appear is a federal statute, and federal courts would be likely to apply those words to whatever state proceedings in fact fall within this federal description, whatever different labels different States might choose to attach. It is simpler, more meaningful, and just as logical to assume that Congress meant the words "other collateral review" to cast a wider net—a net wide enough to include federal collateral proceedings such as those that precede a dismissal for nonexhaustion.
Faced with this statutory ambiguity, I would look to statutory purposes in order to reach a proper interpretation. And, while I agree that Congress sought to " 'further the principles of comity, finality, and federalism,' " ante, at 178 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 420, 436 (2000)), I would also ask whether Congress would have intended to create the kind of "unexhausted petition" problem that I described at the outset. The answer is no. Congress enacted a statute that all agree gave state prisoners a full year (plus the duration of state collateral proceedings) to file a federal habeas corpus petition. Congress would not have intended to shorten that time dramatically, at random, and perhaps erase it altogether, "den[ying] the petitioner the protections of the Great Writ entirely," Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U. S. 314, 324 (1996), simply because the technical nature of the habeas rules led a prisoner initially to file a petition in the wrong court.
The majority's argument assumes a congressional desire to strengthen the prisoners' incentive to file in state court first. But that is not likely to be the result of today's holding. After all, virtually every state prisoner already
Page: Index Previous 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007