Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 508.0

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Unit: $U47

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

433

Opinion of the Court

proceedings. The prisoner had not developed the facts of
his claim in state collateral proceedings, an omission caused
by the negligence of his state postconviction counsel. See
id., at 4, 8–9. The Court characterized this as the “prison-
er’s failure to develop material facts in state court.”
Id.,
at 8. We required the prisoner to demonstrate cause and
prejudice excusing the default before he could receive a
hearing on his claim, ibid., unless the prisoner could “show
that a fundamental miscarriage of justice would result from
failure to hold a federal evidentiary hearing,” id., at 12.

Section 2254(e)(2)’s initial inquiry into whether “the appli-
cant has failed to develop the factual basis of a claim in State
court proceedings” echoes Keeney’s language regarding “the
state prisoner’s failure to develop material facts in state
court.”
In Keeney, the Court borrowed the cause and prej-
udice standard applied to procedurally defaulted claims, see
Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 87–88 (1977), deciding
there was no reason “to distinguish between failing to prop-
erly assert a federal claim in state court and failing in state
court to properly develop such a claim.” Keeney, supra, at
8. As is evident from the similarity between the Court’s
phrasing in Keeney and the opening clause of § 2254(e)(2),
Congress intended to preserve at least one aspect of
Keeney’s holding: prisoners who are at fault for the deﬁ-
ciency in the state-court record must satisfy a heightened
standard to obtain an evidentiary hearing. To be sure, in
requiring that prisoners who have not been diligent satisfy
§ 2254(e)(2)’s provisions rather than show cause and preju-
dice, and in eliminating a freestanding “miscarriage of jus-
tice” exception, Congress raised the bar Keeney imposed on
prisoners who were not diligent in state-court proceedings.
Contrary to the Commonwealth’s position, however, there is
no basis in the text of § 2254(e)(2) to believe Congress used
“fail” in a different sense than the Court did in Keeney or
otherwise intended the statute’s further, more stringent re-
quirements to control the availability of an evidentiary hear-