In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 00-1277

LORENZO WILSON,

Petitioner-Appellant,

v.

Kenneth R. Briley,/*

Respondent-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division

No. 97 C 7335--George W. Lindberg, Judge.

Argued October 27, 2000--Decided March 5, 2001

 Before EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and ROVNER, Circuit

Judges.

 ROVNER, Circuit Judge. In his petition for a

writ of habeas corpus, Lorenzo Wilson asserted

that the state court which sentenced him to a

term of life imprisonment for murder violated his

constitutional rights to trial by jury, due

process, and to be free from double jeopardy when

it found that he set out for the scene of the

crime with the intent to murder two men. The

district court dismissed the petition, finding

that Wilson procedurally defaulted this claim. We

agree and affirm.

I.

 Wilson shot two men to death in 1981. He

contended that he did so in self-defense, but the

State of Illinois tried him on multiple counts of

attempted murder, murder, and armed violence,

alleging that Wilson deliberately killed the men

because they had put out a "hit" on him. A jury

found him guilty of murder with respect to one of

his victims and voluntary manslaughter with

respect to the other. At sentencing, the trial

judge found that Wilson had "deliberately" set

out to kill both men. That finding increased the

maximum prison term on the murder conviction from

forty years to life. See Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 38,

para. 1005-8-1(a)(1)(a), (b) (1981), now codified
at 730 ILCS 5/5-8-1(a)(1)(a), (b). The judge

ordered Wilson to serve consecutive terms of

natural life on the murder conviction and

fourteen years on the voluntary manslaughter

conviction. The Illinois Appellate Court reduced

the term for manslaughter to seven years, but

otherwise affirmed Wilson’s convictions and

sentence. People v. Wilson, 485 N.E.2d 1264 (Ill.

App. 1985). The Illinois Supreme Court denied him

leave to appeal. Wilson later sought postconviction relief, but his petition was denied

without an evidentiary hearing.

II.

 A habeas petitioner may not resort to federal

court without first giving the state courts a

fair opportunity to address his claims and to

correct any error of constitutional magnitude. 28

U.S.C. sec. 2254(b), (c); O’Sullivan v. Boerckel,

526 U.S. 838, 844-45, 119 S. Ct. 1728, 1732

(1999). To satisfy that requirement, he must

present both the operative facts and the legal

principles that control each claim to the state

judiciary; otherwise, he will forfeit federal

review of the claim. Rodriguez v. Scillia, 193

F.3d 913, 916 (7th Cir. 1999); Bocian v. Godinez,

101 F.3d 465, 469 (7th Cir. 1996). In the absence

of a state rule that specifically governs the

presentment of a constitutional claim, four

factors (derived from a waiver analysis) bear

upon whether the petitioner has fairly presented

the claim in state court: (1) whether the

petitioner relied on federal cases that engage in

constitutional analysis; (2) whether the

petitioner relied on state cases which apply a

constitutional analysis to similar facts; (3)

whether the petitioner framed the claim in terms

so particular as to call to mind a specific

constitutional right; and (4) whether the

petitioner alleged a pattern of facts that is

well within the mainstream of constitutional

litigation. Sullivan v. Fairman, 731 F.2d 450,

454 (7th Cir. 1984), citing Daye v. Attorney

General of New York, 696 F.2d 186, 194 (2d Cir.

1982) (en banc), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1048, 104

S. Ct. 723 (1984); see also, e.g., Kurzawa v.

Jordan, 146 F.3d 435, 441 (7th Cir. 1998);

Moleterno v. Nelson, 114 F.3d 629, 634 (7th Cir.

1997); Verdin v. O’Leary, 972 F.2d 1467, 1473-74

(7th Cir. 1992).

If none of the four factors is present and the

state has not otherwise signaled its satisfaction

with the presentment of the federal claim, "then

this court will not consider the state courts to

have had a fair opportunity to consider the

claim." See Verdin, 972 F.2d at 1474. On the

other hand, "the presence of any one of these

factors, particularly (1) and (2), does not
automatically avoid a waiver." Id.

Moleterno, 114 F.3d at 634 (emphasis in

original).

 Consideration of these factors leads us to

conclude that Wilson did not fairly present the

substance of his federal claim to the state

courts. In his brief to the Illinois Appellate

Court, Wilson did not cite any federal cases in

challenging his sentence. He relied exclusively

upon Illinois cases, none of which employed a

federal constitutional analysis. Nor did Wilson

frame his claim in terms so particular as to call

to mind any of the three constitutional rights he

relies upon now. Wilson argues simply that his

claim, as articulated to the state appellate

court, alleged a pattern of facts that falls

within the mainstream of constitutional

litigation. But Wilson’s argument, which

acknowledged the "sound discretion" of the

sentencing court, was cast in terms of a

challenge to the court’s reliance upon "improper

factors." R. 36 Ex. A at 37. At its most

specific, the argument contended that the "trial

court erred" when it "contradicted the verdict of

the jury" by finding that Wilson had deliberately

set out to kill two individuals. Id. at 38. The

facts cited in this argument are certainly

consistent with the federal claim that Wilson

makes in his habeas petition, but that alone does

not enable us to say that the claim, as asserted

in state court, falls within the mainstream of

constitutional litigation--if it were, the fair

presentment requirement would be meaningless. See

Verdin, 972 F.2d at 1475. A given set of facts

can be said to fit within the mainstream of

constitutional litigation only when the fact

pattern is so "commonly thought to involve

constitutional constraints," id. at 1475 (quoting

Daye, 696 F.2d at 193), that the constitutional

basis of the claim is undeniably "obvious," id.

By no stretch of the imagination is that the case

here. Reduced to its essentials, the claim Wilson

made to the Illinois appellate court was that the

sentencing judge abused his discretion. "Abuse of

discretion" and "improper factors" are not terms

that Illinois lawyers and judges, by quirk of

local legal idiom, use to articulate

constitutional arguments. See id. at 1473,

quoting Nadworny v. Fair, 872 F.2d 1093, 1098 (1st

Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 963, 113 S.

Ct. 1392 (1993). To the contrary, abuse-ofdiscretion arguments are ubiquitous, and most

often they have little or nothing to do with

constitutional safeguards. The particular facts

that Wilson cited in support of his claim

certainly do not have such a patent connection to

the constitutional provisions he cites in his

habeas petition that the state court should have
been alerted to the federal basis for the claim.

Indeed, the fact that Wilson relied upon state

cases which engaged in a non-constitutional

analysis based solely on state law principles

belies the notion that the Illinois appellate

court should have understood that Wilson was

invoking his rights under the U.S. constitution.

See Anderson v. Harless, 459 U.S. 4, 7 & n.3, 103

S. Ct. 276, 277-78 & n.3 (1982); Picard v.

Connor, 404 U.S. 270, 276-78, 92 S. Ct. 509, 513

(1971); Verdin, 972 F.2d at 1475-76.

 Wilson’s petition for leave to appeal to the

Illinois Supreme Court framed his claim with a

greater degree of particularity. See R. 36 Ex. B

at 11-12. Yet, even if we assume that the

petition was sufficient to alert the State’s

highest court to the constitutional nature of his

claim, it was too late to preserve the claim for

habeas review. Presenting a federal claim for the

first time in a petition for discretionary review

by a state’s highest court will not satisfy the

fair presentment requirement. Castille v.

Peoples, 489 U.S. 346, 351, 109 S. Ct. 1056, 1060

(1989); Steward v. Gilmore, 80 F.3d 1205, 1212

(7th Cir. 1996); Verdin, 972 F.2d at 1479 n.13. 

 Because Wilson did not alert the Illinois

courts to the constitutional nature of his claim,

we will not entertain the merits of the claim. A

procedural default can be overlooked when the

petitioner demonstrates cause for the default and

consequent prejudice, or when he shows that a

fundamental miscarriage of justice will occur

unless the federal court hears his claim. See

Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S.

Ct. 2546, 2565 (1991); see also, e.g., Anderson

v. Cowan, 227 F.3d 893, 899-90 (7th Cir. 2000).

Wilson has not attempted to make either type of

showing, however.

III.

 Because Wilson did not fairly present his

constitutional claim to the Illinois state

courts, the district court properly dismissed his

habeas corpus petition.

AFFIRMED

/* Kenneth R. Briley has replaced James H. Page as

the warden of the correctional facility where the

petitioner-appellant is incarcerated. We have

therefore substituted Warden Briley as the

appropriate respondent-appellee pursuant to Fed.

R. App. P. 43(c)(2).