Definition: In this task, you will be shown a prompt from a judicial decision and multiple holding statements derived from citations following text in a legal decision. Holdings represent the governing legal rule when the law is applied to a particular set of facts. There are five answer choices for each citing text. The correct answer is the holding statement that corresponds to the citing text. The four incorrect answers are other holding statements. You should find the correct option. There is a <HOLDING> token in the position of the citing text prompt where the holding statement was extracted.
Input: claim was procedurally barred because the state court had rested its decision on an independent and adequate state ground failure to comply with the contemporaneous objection ruleand because cause and prejudice were not shown. On appeal, Mercado challenges the district court's finding. He concedes the procedural default, but asks this Court to find cause and prejudice. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 750, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991) (requiring a showing of "cause for the default and actual prejudice as a result of the alleged violation of federal law"). He identifies the court's interference with his trial counsel's efforts to make a contemporaneous objection as "cause" for the default. See Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 488, 106 S.Ct. 2639, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986) (<HOLDING>). We find no such interference, and no other
Holding statements: (A) holding that exclusion of defense witness does not violate sixth amendment where defendant failed to comply with discovery rule requiring that witnesses be identified before trial (B) holding that failure to comply with state contemporaneous objection rule bars federal review absent a showing of cause and prejudice (C) holding that consideration of a claim in a petition for habeas corpus can be barred by failure to comply with state procedural rules (D) holding that the district court properly allowed the defendant who asserted the disputed defense as a contested issue of law in the joint pretrial order to pursue the defense despite the defendants failure to comply with rule 8c (E) holding that cause exists where some objective factor external to the defense impeded counsels efforts to comply with the states procedural rule
Output:
(E)