Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 496.0

529US2

Unit: $U47

[10-04-01 09:34:47] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 420 (2000)

421

Syllabus

develop” that claim’s factual basis in state court and concedes his inabil-
ity to satisfy the statute’s further stringent conditions for excusing the
deﬁciency. Pp. 429–445.

(a) Petitioner ﬁled his federal habeas petition after AEDPA’s effec-
tive date, so his case is controlled by § 2254(e)(2)’s opening clause, which
speciﬁes that “[i]f the [federal habeas] applicant has failed to develop
the factual basis of a claim in State court proceedings, the court shall
not hold an evidentiary hearing on the claim” unless the applicant makes
speciﬁed showings. Pp. 429–430.

(b) The analysis begins with the language of the statute. Although
“fail” is sometimes used in a neutral way, not importing fault or want of
diligence, this is not the sense in which the word “failed” is used in
§ 2254(e)(2). A statute’s words must be given their ordinary, contempo-
rary, common meaning, absent an indication Congress intended them to
bear some different import. E. g., Walters v. Metropolitan Ed. Enter-
In its customary and preferred sense,
prises, Inc., 519 U. S. 202, 207.
“fail” connotes some omission, fault, or negligence on the part of the
person who has failed to do something.
If Congress had instead in-
tended a “no-fault” standard, it would have had to do no more than
use, in lieu of the phrase “has failed to,” the phrase “did not.” This
interpretation has support in Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U. S. 1, 8,
whose threshold standard of diligence is codiﬁed in § 2254(e)(2)’s opening
clause. The Court’s interpretation also avoids putting § 2254(e)(2) in
needless tension with § 2254(d), which authorizes habeas relief if the
prisoner developed his claim in state court and can prove the state
court’s decision was “contrary to, or an unreasonable application of,
clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of
the United States.” This Court rejects the Commonwealth’s argu-
ments for a “no-fault” reading: that treating the prisoner’s lack of dili-
gence in state court as a prerequisite for application of § 2254(e)(2)
renders a nullity of § 2254(e)(2)(A)(ii)’s provision requiring the pris-
oner to show “a factual predicate [of his claim] could not have been
previously discovered through the exercise of due diligence”; and that
anything less than a no-fault understanding of § 2254(e)(2) is contrary to
AEDPA’s purpose to further comity, ﬁnality, and federalism principles.
Pp. 431–437.

(c) Petitioner did not exercise the diligence required to preserve his
claim that nondisclosure of Cruse’s psychiatric report contravened
Brady. The report, which mentioned Cruse had little recollection of
the murders because he was intoxicated at the time, was prepared be-
fore petitioner was tried; yet it was not raised by petitioner until he
ﬁled his federal habeas petition. Given evidence in the record that his
state habeas counsel knew of the report’s existence and its potential