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Page Number: 16.0

12 

BROWN v. DAVENPORT 

Opinion of the Court 

with discretion when it comes to supplying habeas relief—
providing that they “may” (not must) grant writs of habeas
corpus, and that they should do so only as “law and justice 
require.”  28 U. S. C.  §§ 2241,  2243.    This  language,  the 
Court  recognized,  serves  as  “authorization  to  adjust  the 
scope of the writ in accordance with equitable and pruden-
tial considerations.”  Danforth v. Minnesota, 552 U. S. 264, 
278 (2008); see also Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, 716 
(1993) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). 
Foremost among those considerations is the States’ “power-
ful and legitimate interest in punishing the guilty.”  Calde-
ron v. Thompson, 523 U. S. 538, 556 (1998) (internal quota-
tion  marks  omitted).  Granting  habeas  relief  to  a  state 
prisoner “intrudes on state sovereignty to a degree matched
by few exercises of federal judicial authority.”  Harrington 
v.  Richter,  562  U. S.  86,  103  (2011)  (internal  quotation
marks omitted). 

Exercising its equitable discretion, and informed by these 
concerns,  the  Court  began  to  develop  doctrines  “aimed  at 
returning the Great Writ closer to its historic office.”  Ed-
wards, 593 U. S., at ___ (GORSUCH, J., concurring) (slip op., 
at 8).  The Court established procedural-default standards
to prevent petitioners from evading independent and ade-
quate  state-law  grounds  sustaining  their  convictions. 
Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 86–87 (1977).  The Court 
held that some claims are not cognizable in federal habeas
if  state  courts  provide  a  mechanism  for  review.  Stone  v. 
Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 494–495 (1976).  The Court also ap-
plied  new  rules  to  prevent  cycles  of  repetitive  filings. 
McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 486–493 (1991). 

Brecht  was  part of this effort.  In Chapman,  this Court 
held that, when a defendant demonstrates on direct appeal 
that a constitutional error occurred at his trial, his convic-
tion cannot stand unless the government proves the error’s
harmlessness  “beyond  a  reasonable  doubt.”    386  U. S.,  at 
24.  In Brecht, the Court resolved that this same standard