source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice O’Connor Justice Stevens, Justice Souter,

license: Public Domain

text:
    RHINES v. WEBER, WARDEN
    No. 03-9046.
    Argued January 12, 2005
    Decided March 30, 2005

      O’Connor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 279. Souter, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Ginsburg and Breyer, JJ., joined, post, p. 279.

      Roberto A. Lange, by appointment of the Court, 543 U. S. 806, argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.

      Lawrence E. Long, Attorney General of South Dakota, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Craig M. Eichstadt, Deputy Attorney General.

      A brief of amicus curiae urging reversal was filed for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers by Pamela Harris and David M. Porter.

      A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of California et al. by Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of California, Manuel M. Medeiros, State Solicitor General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Pamela C. Hamanaka, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Donald E. de Nicola and Paul M. Roadarmel, Jr., Deputy Attorneys General, and Christopher L. Morano, Chief State’s Attorney of Connecticut, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Mike Beebe of Arkansas, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Steve Carter of Indiana, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike Mc-Grath of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Kelly A. Ayotte of New Hampshire, Patricia A Madrid of New Mexico, Eliot Spitzer of New York, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Jim Petro of Ohio, Gerald J. Pappert of Pennsylvania, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming.

   Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

We confront here the problem of a “mixed” petition for habeas corpus relief in which a state prisoner presents a federal court with a single petition containing some claims that have been exhausted in the state courts and some that have not. More precisely, we consider whether a federal district court has discretion to stay the mixed petition to allow the petitioner to present his unexhausted claims to the state court in the first instance, and then to return to federal court for review of his perfected petition.

I

Petitioner Charles Russell Rhines was convicted in South Dakota state court of first-degree murder and third-degree burglary and sentenced to death. His conviction became final on December 2,1996, when we denied his initial petition for certiorari. Rhines v. South Dakota, 519 U. S. 1013. On December 5, 1996, Rhines filed a petition for state habeas corpus. App. 32. The state court denied his petition, and the Supreme Court of South Dakota affirmed on February 9, 2000, Rhines v. Weber, 2000 SD 19, 608 N. W. 2d 303. Rhines filed his pro se petition for federal habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota on February 22, 2000. App. 3. Because the 1-year statute of limitations imposed by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) was tolled while Rhines’ state habeas corpus petition was pending, see 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2), he still had more than 11 months left before the expiration of the limitations period.

With the assistance of court-appointed counsel, Rhines filed an amended petition for writ of habeas corpus and statement of exhaustion on November 20, 2000, asserting 35 claims of constitutional defects in his conviction and sentence. App. 39-60. The State challenged 12 of those claims as unexhausted. Id., at 72-79. On July 3, 2002, approximately 18 months after Rhines had filed his amended federal habeas corpus petition, the District Court held that 8 of the 35 claims had not been exhausted. At this time, the AEDPA 1-year statute of limitations had run. See Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 181-182 (2001) (holding that the statute of limitations is not tolled during the pendancy of a federal petition). As a result, if the District Court had dismissed Rhines’ mixed petition at that point, he would have been unable to refile in federal court after exhausting the unexhausted claims. Rhines therefore moved the District Court to hold his pending habeas petition in abeyance while he presented his unexhausted claims to the South Dakota courts. On July 3, 2002, the District Court granted the motion and issued a stay “conditioned upon petitioner commencing state court exhaustion proceedings within sixty days of this order and returning to this court within sixty days of completing such exhaustion.” App. 136. In compliance with that order, Rhines filed his second state habeas corpus petition on August 22, 2002.

The State appealed the District Court’s stay of Rhines’ mixed petition to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Relying on its decision in Akins v. Kenney, 341 F. 3d 681, 686 (2003) (holding that “a district.court has no authority to hold a habeas petition containing unex-hausted claims in abeyance absent truly exceptional circumstances” (internal quotation marks omitted)), the Court of Appeals vacated the stay and remanded the case to the District Court to determine whether Rhines could proceed by deleting unexhausted claims from his petition. 346 F. 3d 799 (2003). We granted certiorari to resolve a split in the Circuits regarding the propriety of the District Court’s “stay- and-abeyance” procedure. 542 U. S. 936 (2004). Compare, e. g., Crews v. Horn, 360 F. 3d 146, 152 (CA3 2004); and Zarvela v. Artuz, 254 F. 3d 374, 381 (CA2 2001), with 346 F. 3d 799 (2003) (case below).

II

Fourteen years before Congress enacted AEDPA, we held in Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982), that federal district courts may not adjudicate mixed petitions for habeas corpus, that is, petitions containing both exhausted and unexhausted claims. We reasoned that the interests of comity and federalism dictate that state courts must have the first opportunity to decide a petitioner’s claims. Id., at 518-519. We noted that “[b]ecause ‘it would be unseemly in our dual system of government for a federal district court to upset a state court conviction without an opportunity to the state courts to correct a constitutional violation/ federal courts apply the doctrine of comity.” Id., at 518 (quoting Darr v. Burford, 339 U. S. 200, 204 (1950)). That doctrine “ ‘teaches that one court should defer action on causes properly within its jurisdiction until the courts of another sovereignty with concurrent powers, and already cognizant of the litigation, have had an opportunity to pass upon the matter.’” 455 U. S., at 518.

Accordingly, we imposed a requirement of “total exhaustion” and directed federal courts to effectuate that requirement by dismissing mixed petitions without prejudice and allowing petitioners to return to state court to present the unexhausted claims to that court in the first instance. Id., at 522. When we decided Lundy, there was no statute of limitations on the filing of federal habeas corpus petitions. As a result, petitioners who returned to state court to exhaust their previously unexhausted claims could come back to federal court to present their perfected petitions with relative ease. See Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U. S. 473, 486 (2000) (dismissal without prejudice under Lundy “contemplated that the prisoner could return to federal court after the requisite exhaustion”).

The enactment of AEDPA in 1996 dramatically altered the landscape for federal habeas corpus petitions. AEDPA preserved Lundy’s total exhaustion requirement, see 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus ... shall not be granted unless it appears that... the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State”), but it also imposed a 1-year statute of limitations on the filing of federal petitions, § 2244(d). Although the limitations period is tolled during the pendency of a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review,” § 2244(d)(2), the filing of a petition for ha-beas corpus in federal court does not toll the statute of limitations, Duncan, 533 U. S., at 181-182.

As a result of the interplay between AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations and Lundy’s dismissal requirement, petitioners who come to federal court with “mixed” petitions run the risk of forever losing their opportunity for any federal review of their unexhausted claims. If a petitioner files a timely but mixed petition in federal district court, and the district court dismisses it under Lundy after the limitations period has expired, this will likely mean the termination of any federal review. For example, if the District Court in this case had dismissed the petition because it contained un-exhausted claims, AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limitations would have barred Rhines from returning to federal court after exhausting the previously unexhausted claims in state court. Similarly, if a district court dismisses a mixed petition close to the end of the 1-year period, the petitioner’s chances of exhausting his claims in state court and refiling his petition in federal court before the limitations period runs are slim. The problem is not limited to petitioners who file close to the AEDPA deadline. Even a petitioner who files early will have no way of controlling when the district court will resolve the question of exhaustion. Thu's, whether a petitioner ever receives federal review of his claims may turn on which district court happens to hear his case.

We recognize the gravity of this problem and the difficulty it has posed for petitioners and federal district courts alike. In an attempt to solve the problem, some district courts have adopted a version of the “stay-and-abeyanee” procedure employed by the District Court below. Under this procedure, rather than dismiss the mixed petition pursuant to Lundy, a district court might stay the petition and hold it in abeyance while the petitioner returns to state court to exhaust his previously unexhausted claims. Once the petitioner exhausts his state remedies, the district court will lift the stay and allow the petitioner to proceed in federal court.

District courts do ordinarily have authority to issue stays, see Landis v. North American Co., 299 U. S. 248, 254 (1936), where such a stay would be a proper exercise of discretion, see Clinton v. Jones, 520 U. S. 681, 706 (1997). AEDPA does not deprive district courts of that authority, cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus ... shall not be granted unless it appears that... the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State” (emphasis added)), but it does circumscribe their discretion. Any solution to this problem must therefore be compatible with AEDPA’s purposes.

One of the statute’s purposes is to “reduce delays in the execution of state and federal criminal sentences, particularly in capital cases.” Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U. S. 202, 206 (2003). See also Duncan, 533 U. S., at 179. AEDPA’s 1-year limitations period “quite plainly serves the well-recognized interest in the finality of state court judgments.” Ibid. It “reduces the potential for delay on the road to finality by restricting the time that a prospective federal habeas petitioner has in which to seek federal habeas review.” Ibid.

Moreover, Congress enacted AEDPA against the backdrop of Lundy’s total exhaustion requirement. The tolling provision in § 2244(d)(2) “balances the interests served by the exhaustion requirement and the limitation period” “by protecting a state prisoner’s ability later to apply for federal habeas relief while state remedies are being pursued.” Duncan, supra, at 179. AEDPA thus encourages petitioners to seek relief from state courts in the first instance by tolling the 1-year limitations period while a “properly filed application for State post-conviction or other collateral review” is pending. 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(2). This scheme reinforces the importance of Lundy’s “simple and clear instruction to potential litigants: before you bring any claims to federal court, be sure that you first have taken each one to state court.” 455 U. S., at 520.

Stay and abeyance, if employed too frequently, has the potential to undermine these twin purposes. Staying a federal habeas petition frustrates AEDPA’s objective of encouraging finality by allowing a petitioner to delay the resolution of the federal proceedings. It also undermines AEDPA’s goal of streamlining federal habeas proceedings by decreasing a petitioner’s incentive to exhaust all his claims in state court prior to filing his federal petition. Cf. Duncan, supra, at 180 (“[Diminution of statutory incentives to proceed first in state court would ... increase the risk of the very piecemeal litigation that the exhaustion requirement is designed to reduce”).

For these reasons, stay and abeyance should be available only in limited circumstances. Because granting a stay effectively excuses a petitioner’s failure to present his claims first to the state courts, stay and abeyance is only appropriate when the district court determines there was good cause for the petitioner’s failure to exhaust his claims first in state court. Moreover, even if a petitioner had good cause for that failure, the district court would abuse its discretion if it were to grant him a stay when his unexhausted claims are plainly meritless. Cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(2) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus may be denied on the merits, notwithstanding the failure of the applicant to exhaust the remedies available in the courts of the State”).

Even where stay and abeyance is appropriate, the district court’s discretion in structuring the stay is limited by the timeliness concerns reflected in AEDPA. A mixed petition should not be stayed indefinitely. Though, generally, a prisoner’s “principal interest ... is in obtaining speedy federal relief on his claims,” Lundy, supra, at 520 (plurality opinion), not all petitioners have an incentive to obtain federal relief as quickly as possible. In particular, capital petitioners might deliberately engage in dilatory tactics to prolong their incarceration and avoid execution of the sentence of death. Without time limits, petitioners could frustrate AEDPA’s goal of finality by dragging out indefinitely their federal ha-beas review. Thus, district courts should place reasonable time limits on a petitioner’s trip to state court and back. See, e. g., Zarvela, 254 F. 3d, at 381 (“[District courts] should explicitly condition the stay on the prisoner’s pursuing state court remedies within a brief interval, normally 30 days, after the stay is entered and returning to federal court within a similarly brief interval, normally 30 days after state court exhaustion is completed”). And if a petitioner engages in abusive litigation tactics or intentional delay, the district court should not grant him a stay at all. See id., at 380-381.

On the other hand, it likely would be an abuse of discretion for a district court to deny a stay and to dismiss a mixed petition if the petitioner had good cause for his failure to exhaust, his unexhausted claims are 'potentially meritorious, and there is no indication that the petitioner engaged in intentionally dilatory litigation tactics. In such circumstances, the district court should stay, rather than dismiss, the mixed petition. See Lundy, 455 U. S., at 522 (the total exhaustion requirement was not intended to “unreasonably impair the prisoner’s right to relief”). In such a case, the petitioner’s interest in obtaining federal review of his claims outweighs the competing interests in finality and speedy resolution of federal petitions. For the same reason, if a petitioner presents a district court with a mixed petition and the court determines that stay and abeyance is inappropriate, the court should allow the petitioner to delete the unex-hausted claims and to proceed with the exhausted claims if dismissal of the entire petition would unreasonably impair the petitioner’s right to obtain federal relief. See id., at 520 (plurality opinion) (“[A petitioner] can always amend the petition to delete the unexhausted claims, rather than returning to state court to exhaust all of his claims”).

The Court of Appeals erred to the extent it concluded that stay and abeyance is always impermissible. We therefore vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for that court to determine, consistent with this opinion, whether the District Court’s grant of a stay in this case constituted an abuse of discretion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join, concurring.

While I join the Court’s opinion, I do so on the understanding that its reference to “good cause” for failing to exhaust state remedies more promptly, ante, at 277, is not intended to impose the sort of strict and inflexible requirement that would “ ‘trap the unwary pro se prisoner.’ ” Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509, 520 (1982); see also Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U. S. 473, 487 (2000).

Justice Souter,

with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I join the Court’s opinion with one reservation, not doctrinal but practical. Instead of conditioning stay-and-abeyance on “good cause” for delay, ante, at 277, I would simply hold the order unavailable on a demonstration of “intentionally dilatory litigation tactics,” ante, at 278. The trickiness of some exhaustion determinations promises to infect issues of good cause when a court finds a failure to exhaust; pro se petitioners (as most habeas petitioners are) do. not come well trained to address such matters. I fear that threshold enquiries into good cause will give the district courts too much trouble to be worth the time; far better to wait for the alarm to sound when there is some indication that a petitioner is gaming the system.


author: Justice Ginsburg

text:
    EXXON MOBIL CORP. et al. v. SAUDI BASIC INDUSTRIES CORP.
    No. 03-1696.
    Argued February 23, 2005
    Decided March 30, 2005

      Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

      Gregory S. Coleman argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Christian J. Ward, James W. Quinn, David Lender, and Andrew S. Pollis.

      Gregory A. Castanias argued the cause for respondent. With him on the briefs were Lawrence D. Rosenberg, William K. Shirey II, and Kenneth R. Adamo

        Nancie G. Marzulla and Roger J. Marzulla filed a brief for Defenders of Property Rights et al. as amici curiae.

   Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case concerns what has come to be known as the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, applied by this Court only twice, first in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413 (1923), then, 60 years later, in District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462 (1983). Variously interpreted in the lower courts, the doctrine has sometimes been construed to extend far beyond the contours of the Rooker and Feldman cases, overriding Congress’ conferral of federal-court jurisdiction concurrent with jurisdiction exercised by state courts, and superseding the ordinary application of preclusion law pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1738. See, e.g., Moccio v. New York State Office of Court Admin., 95 F. 3d 195, 199-200 (CA2 1996).

Rooker was a suit commenced in Federal District Court to have a judgment of a state court, adverse to the federal court plaintiffs, "declared null and void.” 263 U. S., at 414. In Feldman, parties unsuccessful in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (the District’s highest court) commenced a federal-court action against the very court that had rejected their applications. Holding the federal suits impermissible, we emphasized that appellate jurisdiction to reverse or modify a state-court judgment is lodged, initially by § 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 85, and now by 28 U. S. C. § 1257, exclusively in this Court. Federal district courts, we noted, are empowered to exercise original, not appellate, jurisdiction. Plaintiffs in Rooker and Feldman had litigated and lost in state court. Their federal complaints, we observed, essentially invited federal courts of first instance to review and reverse unfavorable state-court judgments. We declared such suits out of bounds, i. e., properly dismissed for want of subject-matter jurisdiction.

The Rooker-Feldman doctrine, we hold today, is confined to cases of the kind from which the doctrine acquired its name: cases brought by state-court losers complaining of injuries caused by state-court judgments rendered before the district court proceedings commenced and inviting district court review and rejection of those judgments. Rooker-Feldman does not otherwise override or supplant preclusion doctrine or augment the circumscribed doctrines that allow federal courts to stay or dismiss proceedings in deference to state-court actions.

In the case before us, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit misperceived the narrow ground occupied by Rooker-Feldman, and consequently erred in ordering the federal action dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. We therefore reverse the Third Circuit’s judgment.

I—

In Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, the parties defeated in state court turned to a Federal District Court for relief. Alleging that the adverse state-court judgment was rendered in contravention of the Constitution, they asked the federal court to declare it “null and void.” Id., at 414-415. This Court noted preliminarily that the state court had acted within its jurisdiction. Id., at 415. If the state-court decision was wrong, the Court explained, “that did not make the judgment void, but merely left it open to reversal or modification in an appropriate and timely appellate proceeding.” Ibid. Federal district courts, the Rooker Court recognized, lacked the requisite appellate authority, for their jurisdiction was “strictly original.” Id., at 416. Among federal courts, the Rooker Court clarified, Congress had empowered only this Court to exercise appellate authority “to reverse or modify” a state-court judgment. Ibid. Accordingly, the Court affirmed a decree dismissing the suit for lack of jurisdiction. Id., at 415, 417.

Sixty years later, the Court decided District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U. S. 462. The two plaintiffs in that case, Hickey and Feldman, neither of whom had graduated from an accredited law school, petitioned the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to waive a court Rule that required D. C. bar applicants to have graduated from a law school approved by the American Bar Association. After the D. C. court denied their waiver requests, Hickey and Feldman filed suits in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Id., at 465-473. The District Court and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed on the question whether the federal suit could be maintained, and we granted certiorari. Id., at 474-475.

Recalling Rooker, this Court’s opinion in Feldman observed first that the District Court lacked authority to review a final judicial determination of the D. C. high court. “Review of such determinations,” the Feldman opinion reiterated, “can be obtained only in this Court.” 460 U. S., at 476. The “crucial question,” the Court next stated, was whether the proceedings in the D. C. court were “judicial in nature.” Ibid. Addressing that question, the Court concluded that the D. C. court had acted both judicially and legislatively.

In applying the accreditation Rule to the Hickey and Feld-man waiver petitions, this Court determined, the D. C. court had acted judicially. Id., at 479-482. As to that adjudication, Feldman held, this Court alone among federal courts had review authority. Hence, “to the extent that Hickey and Feldman sought review in the District Court of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ denial of their petitions for waiver, the District Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over their complaints.” Id., at 482. But that determination did not dispose of the entire case, for in promulgating the bar admission rule, this Court said, the D. C. court had acted legislatively, not judicially. Id., at 485-486. “Challenges to the constitutionality of state bar rules,” the Court elaborated, “do not necessarily require a United States district court to review a final state-court judgment in a judicial proceeding.” Id., at 486. Thus, the Court reasoned, 28 U. S. C. § 1257 did not bar District Court proceedings addressed to the validity of the accreditation Rule itself. Feldman, 460 U. S., at 486. The Rule could be contested in federal court, this Court held, so long as plaintiffs did not seek review of the Rule’s application in a particular case. Ibid.

The Court endeavored to separate elements of the Hickey and Feldman complaints that failed the jurisdictional threshold from those that survived jurisdictional inspection. Plaintiffs had urged that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals acted arbitrarily in denying the waiver petitions of Hickey and Feldman, given that court’s “former policy of granting waivers to graduates of unaccredited law schools.” Ibid. That charge, the Court held, could not be pursued, for it was “inextricably intertwined with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ decisions, in judicial proceedings, to deny [plaintiffs’] petitions.” Id., at 486-487.

On the other hand, the Court said, plaintiffs could maintain “claims that the [bar admission] rule is unconstitutional because it creates an irrebuttable presumption that only graduates of accredited law schools are fit to practice law, discriminates against those who have obtained equivalent legal training by other means, and impermissibly delegates the District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ power to regulate the bar to the American Bar Association,” for those claims “dp not require review of a judicial decision in a particular case.” Id., at 487. The Court left open the question whether the doctrine of res judicata foreclosed litigation of the elements of the complaints spared from dismissal for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. Id., at 487-488.

Since Feldman, this Court has never applied Rooker-Feldman to dismiss an action for want of jurisdiction. The few decisions that have mentioned Rooker and Feldman have done so only in passing or to explain why those cases did not dictate dismissal. See Verizon Md. Inc. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of Md., 535 U. S. 635, 644, n. 3 (2002) (Rooker-Feldman does not apply to a suit seeking review of state agency action); Johnson v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1005-1006 (1994) (Rooker-Feldman bars a losing party in state court “from seeking what in substance would be appellate review of the state judgment in a United States district court, based on the losing party’s claim that the state judgment itself violates the loser’s federal rights,” but the doctrine has no application to a federal suit brought by a non-party to the state suit.); Howlett v. Rose, 496 U. S. 356, 369-370, n. 16 (1990) (citing Rooker and Feldman for “the rule that a federal district court cannot entertain an original action alleging that a state court violated the Constitution by giving effect to an unconstitutional state statute”); ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 622-623 (1989) (If, instead of seeking review of an adverse state supreme court decision in the Supreme Court, petitioners sued in federal district court, the federal action would be an attempt to obtain direct review of the state supreme court decision and would “represent a partial inroad on Rooker-Feldman’s, construction of 28 U. S. C. § 1257.”); Pennzoil Co. v. Texaco Inc., 481 U. S. 1, 6-10 (1987) (abstaining under Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), rather than dismissing under Rooker-Feldman, in a suit that challenged Texas procedures for enforcing judgments); 481 U. S., at 18 (Scalia, J., concurring) (The “so-called Rooker-Feldman doctrine” does not deprive the Court of jurisdiction to decide Texaco’s challenge to the Texas procedures); id., at 21 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (Rooker and Feldman do not apply; Texaco filed its federal action to protect its “right to a meaningful opportunity for appellate review, not to challenge the merits of the Texas suit.”). But cf. 481 U. S., at 25-26 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment) (Rooker-Feldman would apply because Texaco’s claims necessarily called for review of the merits of its state appeal). See also Martin v. Wilks, 490 U. S. 755, 783-784, n. 21 (1989) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (it would be anomalous to allow courts to sit in review of judgments entered by courts of equal, or greater, authority (citing Rooker and Feldman))

II

In 1980, two subsidiaries of petitioner Exxon Mobil Corporation (then the separate companies Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp.) formed joint ventures with respondent Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC) to produce polyethylene in Saudi Arabia. 194 F. Supp. 2d 378, 384 (NJ 2002). Two decades later, the parties began to dispute royalties that SABIC had charged the joint ventures for sublicenses to a polyethylene manufacturing method. 364 F. 3d 102, 103 (CA3 2004).

SABIC preemptively sued the two ExxonMobil subsidiaries in Delaware Superior Court in July 2000 seeking a declaratory judgment that the royalty charges were proper under the joint venture agreements. 194 F. Supp. 2d, at 385-386. About two weeks later, ExxonMobil and its subsidiaries countersued SABIC in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, alleging that SABIC overcharged the joint ventures for the sublicenses. Id., at 385; App. 3. ExxonMobil invoked subject-matter jurisdiction in the New Jersey action under 28 U. S. C. § 1330, which authorizes district courts to adjudicate actions against foreign states. 194 F. Supp. 2d, at 401.

In January 2002, the ExxonMobil subsidiaries answered SABIC’s state-court complaint, asserting as counterclaims the same claims ExxonMobil had made in the federal suit in New Jersey. 364 F. 3d, at 103. The state suit went to trial in March 2003, and the jury returned a verdict of over $400 million in favor of the ExxonMobil subsidiaries. Ibid.; Saudi Basic Industries Corp. v. Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Co., 866 A. 2d 1, 11 (Del. 2005). SABIC appealed the judgment entered on the verdict to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Before the state-court trial, SABIC moved to dismiss the federal suit, alleging, inter alia, immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 28 U. S. C. § 1602 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. II). The Federal District Court denied SABIC’s motion to dismiss. 194 F. Supp. 2d, at 401-407, 416-417. SABIC took an interlocutory appeal, and the Court of Appeals heard argument in December 2003, over eight months after the state-court jury verdict. 364 F. 3d, at 103-104. .

The Court of Appeals, on its own motion, raised the question whether “subject matter jurisdiction over this case falls under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine because ExxonMobil’s claims have already been litigated in state court.” Id., at 104. The court did not question the District Court’s possession of subject-matter jurisdiction at the outset of the suit, but held that federal jurisdiction terminated when the Delaware Superior Court entered judgment on the jury verdict. Id., at 104-105. The court rejected ExxonMobil’s argument that Rooker-Feldman could not apply because ExxonMobil filed its federal complaint well before the state-court judgment. The only relevant consideration, the court stated, “is whether the state judgment precedes a federal judgment on the same claims.” 364 F. 3d, at 105. If Rooker-Feldman did not apply to federal actions filed prior to a state-court judgment, the Court of Appeals worried, “we would be encouraging parties to maintain federal actions as ‘insurance policies’ while their state court claims were pending.” 364 F. 3d, at 105. Once ExxonMobil’s claims had been litigated to a judgment in state court, the Court of Appeals held, Rooker-Feldman “preclude[d] [the] federal district court from proceeding.” 364 F. 3d, at 104 (internal quotation marks omitted).

ExxonMobil, at that point prevailing in Delaware, was not seeking to overturn the state-court judgment. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeals hypothesized that, if SABIC won on appeal in Delaware, ExxonMobil would be endeavoring in the federal action to “invalidate” the state-court judgment, “the very situation,” the court concluded, “contemplated by Rooker-Feldman’s ‘inextricably intertwined’ bar.” Id., at 106.

We granted certiorari, 543 U. S. 924 (2004), to resolve conflict among the Courts of Appeals over the scope of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. We now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

III

Rooker and Feldman exhibit the limited circumstances m which this Court’s appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, 28 U. S. C. § 1257, precludes a United States district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction in an action it would otherwise be empowered to adjudicate under a congressional grant of authority, e. g., § 1330 (suits against foreign states), §1331 (federal question), and §1332 (diversity). In both cases, the losing party in state court filed suit in federal court after the state proceedings ended, complaining of an injury caused by the state-court judgment and seeking review and rejection of that judgment. Plaintiffs in both cases, alleging federal-question jurisdiction, called upon the District Court to overturn an injurious state-court judgment. Because § 1257, as long interpreted, vests authority to review a state court’s judgment solely in this Court, e. g., Feldman, 460 U. S., at 476; Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281, 286 (1970); Rooker, 263 U. S., at 416, the District Courts in Rooker and Feldman lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. See Verizon Md. Inc., 535 U. S., at 644, n. 3 (“The Rooker-Feldman doctrine merely recognizes that 28 U. S. C. § 1331 is a grant of original jurisdiction, and does not authorize district courts to exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments, which Congress has reserved to this Court, see § 1257(a).”).

When there is parallel state and federal litigation, Rooker-Feldman is not triggered simply by the entry of judgment in state court. This Court has repeatedly held that “the pendency of an action in the state court is no bar to proceedings concerning the same matter in the Federal court having jurisdiction.” McClellan v. Carland, 217 U. S. 268, 282 (1910); accord Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U. S. 922, 928 (1975); Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 398 U. S., at 295. Comity or abstention doctrines may, in various circumstances, permit or require the federal court to stay or dismiss the federal action in favor of the state-court litigation. See, e. g., Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U. S. 800 (1976); Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971); Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U. S. 315 (1943); Railroad Comm’n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941). But neither Rooker nor Feldman supports the notion that properly invoked concurrent jurisdiction vanishes if a state court reaches judgment on the same or related question while the case remains sub judice in a federal court.

Disposition of the federal action, once the state-court adjudication is complete, would be governed by preclusion law. The Full Faith and Credit Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1738, originally enacted in 1790, ch. 11,1 Stat. 122, requires the federal court to “give the same preclusive effect to a state-court judgment as another court of that State would give.” Parsons Steel, Inc. v. First Alabama Bank, 474 U. S. 518, 523 (1986); accord Matsushita Elec. Industrial Co. v. Epstein, 516 U. S. 367, 373 (1996); Marrese v. American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 470 U. S. 373, 380-381 (1985). Preclusion, of course, is not a jurisdictional matter. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(c) (listing res judicata as an affirmative defense). In parallel litigation, a federal court may be bound to recognize the claim- and issue-preclusive effects of a state-court judgment, but federal jurisdiction over an action does not terminate automatically on the entry of judgment in the state court.

Nor does §1257 stop a district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction simply because a party attempts to litigate in federal court a matter previously litigated in state court. If a federal plaintiff “presents] some independent claim, albeit one that denies a legal conclusion that a state court has reached in a case to which he was a party..., then there is jurisdiction and state law determines whether the defendant prevails under principles of preclusion.” GASH Assocs. v. Rosemont, 995 F. 2d 726, 728 (CA7 1993); accord Noel v. Hall, 341 F. 3d 1148, 1163-1164 (CA9 2003).

This case surely is not the “paradigm situation in which Rooker-Feldman precludes a federal district court from proceeding.” 364 F. 3d, at 104 (quoting E. B. v. Verniero, 119 F. 3d 1077, 1090-1091 (CA3 1997)). ExxonMobil plainly has not repaired to federal court to undo the Delaware judgment in its favor. Rather, it appears ExxonMobil filed suit in Federal District Court (only two weeks after SABIC filed in Delaware and well before any judgment in state court) to protect itself in the event it lost in state court on grounds' (such as the state statute of limitations) that might not preclude relief in the federal venue. Tr. of Oral Arg. 46; App. 35-36. Rooker-Feldman did not prevent the District Court from exercising jurisdiction when ExxonMobil filed the federal action, and it did not emerge to vanquish jurisdiction after ExxonMobil prevailed in the Delaware courts.

^ ‡ ‡

For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

       Earlier in the opinion the Court had used the same expression. In a footnote, the Court explained that a district court could not entertain constitutional claims attacking a state-court judgment, even if the state court had not passed directly on those claims, when the constitutional attack was “inextricably intertwined” with the state court’s judgment. Feldman, 460 U. S., at 482, n. 16.

       Respondent Saudi Basic Industries Corp. urges that ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605 (1989), expanded Rooker-Feldman’s jurisdictional bar to include federal actions that simply raise claims previously litigated in state court. Brief for Respondent 20-22. This is not so. In
        ASARCO, the petitioners (defendants below in the state-court action) sought review in this Court of the Arizona Supreme Court’s invalidation of a state statute governing mineral leases on state lands. 490 U. S., at 610. This Court dismissed the suggestion of the United States that the petitioners should have pursued their claim as a new action in federal district court. Such an action, we said, “in essence, would be an attempt to obtain direct review of the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision in the lower federal courts” in contravention of 28 U. S. C. § 1257. 490 U. S., at 622-623. The injury of which the petitioners (the losing parties in state court) could have complained in the hypothetical federal suit would have been caused by the state court’s invalidation of their mineral leases, and the relief they would have sought would have been to undo the state court’s invalidation of the statute. The hypothetical suit in ASARCO, therefore, shares the characteristics of the suits in Rooker and Feldman, i. e., loser in state court invites federal district court to overturn state-court judgment.

       Between 1923, when the Court decided Rooker, and 1983, when it decided Feldman, the Court cited Rooker in one opinion, Fishgold v. Sullivan Drydock & Repair Corp., 328 U. S. 275, 283 (1946), in reference to the finality of prior judgments. See Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U. S. 413, 415 (1923) (“Unless and until... reversed or modified, [the state-court judgment] would be an effective and conclusive adjudication.”). Rooker’s only other appearance in the United States Reports before 1983 occurs in Justice White’s dissent from denial of certiorari in Florida State Bd. of Dentistry v. Mack, 401 U. S. 960, 961 (1971).

       SABIC is a Saudi Arabian corporation, 70% owned by the Saudi Government and 30% owned by private investors. 194 F. Supp. 2d, at 384.

         At ExxonMobil’s request, the Court of Appeals initially stayed its consideration of the appeal to await resolution of the proceedings in Delaware. App. 9-10. In November 2003, shortly after SABIC filed its appeal in the Delaware Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, on SABIC’s motion, lifted the stay and set the appeal for argument. Id., at 11-13.

       One day before argument, the Court of Appeals directed the parties to be prepared to address whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine deprived the District Court of jurisdiction over the case. App. 17.

       SABIC contends that this case is moot because the Delaware Supreme Court has affirmed the trial-court judgment in favor of ExxonMobil, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. v. Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Co., 866 A. 2d 1 (2005), and has denied reargument en banc, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. v. Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Co., No. 493, 2003 (Feb. 22, 2005). Brief for Respondent 10-13. SABIC continues to oppose the Delaware judgment, however, and has represented that it will petition this Court for a writ of certiorari. Tr. of Oral Arg. 22-23. The controversy therefore remains live.

       Congress, if so minded, may explicitly empower district courts to oversee certain state-court judgments and has done so, most notably, in authorizing federal habeas review of state prisoners’ petitions. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a).

       The Court of Appeals criticized ExxonMobil for pursuing its federal suit as an “insurance policy” against an adverse result in state court. 364 F. 3d 102, 105-106 (CA3 2004). There is nothing necessarily inappropriate, however, about filing a protective action. See, e. g., Rhines v. Weber, ante, at 277-278 (permitting a federal district court to stay a federal ha-beas action and hold the petition in abeyance while a petitioner exhausts claims in state court); Union Pacific R. Co. v. Department of Revenue of Ore., 920 F. 2d 581, 584, and n. 9 (CA9 1990) (noting that the railroad company had filed protective actions in state court to prevent expiration of the state statute of limitations); Government of Virgin Islands v. Neadle, 861 F. Supp. 1054, 1055 (MD Fla. 1994) (staying an action brought by plaintiffs “to protect themselves” in the event that personal jurisdiction over the defendants failed in the United States District Court for the Virgin Islands); see also England v. Louisiana Bd. of Medical Examiners, 375 U. S. 411, 421 (1964) (permitting a party to reserve litigation of federal constitutional claims for federal court while a state court resolves questions of state law).


author:
Justice Souter
      Justice Kennedy,

text:
    JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES
    No. 03-9685.
    Argued January 18, 2005
    Decided April 4, 2005

      SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and O’Connor, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Scalia, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined, post, p. 312.

      Courtland L. Reichman argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioner.

      Dan Himmelfarb argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney General Wray, Deputy Solicitor General Dréeben, and Nina Goodman.

        Donald F. Samuel and Michael Kennedy McIntyre filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.

   Justice Souter

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question here is when the 1-year statute of limitations in 28 U. S. C. § 2255, ¶ 6(4), begins to run in a case of a prisoner’s collateral attack on his federal sentence on the ground that a state conviction used to enhance that sentence has since been vacated. We hold that the period begins when a petitioner receives notice of the order vacating the prior conviction, provided that he has sought it with due diligence in state court, after entry of judgment in the federal case with the enhanced sentence.

I — (

In 1994, petitioner Robert Johnson, Jr., was indicted for distributing cocaine base and related conspiracy. Following his guilty plea to a single count of distribution in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U. S. C. § 2, the presentence investigation report recommended that Johnson receive an enhanced sentence as a career offender under §4B1.1 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, owing to his two 1989 convictions by the State of Georgia for distributing cocaine. Without elaboration, Johnson filed an objection to the recommendation, which he withdrew at the sentencing hearing. The District Court imposed the enhancement and entered judgment on November 29, 1994.

On appeal, Johnson argued for the first time that he should not have been sentenced as a career offender because one of his Georgia convictions was invalid. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the sentence, finding that in the trial court Johnson had raised no objection to the validity of his prior convictions and that the judge’s career offender findings were not clearly erroneous. United States v. Johnson, No. 94-9402 (Dec. 22, 1995) (per curiam), App. 7. In a footnote, the Court of Appeals

“note[d] in passing that, should appellant obtain at some future date the vacation of the state court conviction in question because [it was] obtained in violation of his constitutional rights, he could petition the district court under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 for the relief he now asks us to provide.” Id., at 8, n. 1.

We denied certiorari. Johnson v. United States, 517 U. S. 1162 (1996).

Two days later, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) went into effect, imposing, among other things, a 1-year period of limitations on motions by prisoners seeking to modify their federal sentences:

“The limitation period shall run from the latest of—
“(1) the date on which the judgment of conviction becomes final;
“(2) the date on which the impediment to making a motion created by governmental action in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States is removed, if the movant was prevented from making a motion by such governmental action;
“(3) the date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court, if that right has been newly recognized by the Supreme Court and made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review; or
“(4) the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.” 28 U. S. C. §2255, ¶6.

A fifth option supplied uniformly by the Courts of Appeals gave prisoners whose convictions became final before AEDPA a 1-year grace period running from the new statute’s effective date. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 183, n. 1 (2001) (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (collecting cases).

On April 25, 1997, one year and three days after his pre-AEDPA federal conviction became final and just after the 1-year grace period expired, Johnson pro se filed a motion in the District Court for a 60-day extension of time to attack his federal sentence under § 2255. Finding the AEDPA period expired, the District Court denied the motion, though it added that denial was without prejudice to Johnson’s right to file a § 2255 motion claiming any alternative limitation period under the statute.

On February 6,1998, Johnson petitioned for writ of habeas corpus in the Superior Court of Wayne County, Georgia, claiming the invalidity of his guilty pleas in seven cases between 1983 and 1993 because he had not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his right to counsel. One of the seven pleas Johnson challenged was the basis for one of the 1989 convictions on which the District Court had rested the career offender enhancement of Johnson’s federal sentence. The State of Georgia denied Johnson’s allegations, but filed no hearing transcripts. The Superior Court found that the records did “not show an affirmative waiver of [Johnson’s] right to an attorney” in any of the cases, App. 10, and entered an order of vacatur, that all seven convictions be reversed, ibid.

Just over three months later, Johnson was back in the Federal District Court pro se with a motion under § 2255 to vacate the enhanced federal sentence following the vacatur of one of its predicate state convictions. He claimed his motion was timely because the order vacating the state judgment was “new evidence” not previously discoverable, and so the trigger of a renewed limitation period. The Magistrate Judge took Johnson to be relying on the discovery of “facts supporting the claim” addressed in § 2255, ¶ 6(4), but still recommended denial of the motion for failure on Johnson’s part to exercise the “due diligence” required by that provision. Id., at 15-17. Although Johnson objected that lack of education excused him from acting more promptly, and that he had filed the state petition as soon as he could get help from an inmate law clerk, the District Court denied the § 2255 motion as untimely. In the court’s view, the applicable limitation was the 1-year grace period that was over in April 1997, which Johnson had done nothing to toll in the 21 months he waited after his conviction became final before filing his state habeas petition. Id., at 19.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. 340 F. 3d 1219 (CA11 2003). The majority reasoned that the state-court order vacating the prior state conviction was not a “‘fact’” under the fourth paragraph of the §2255 limitation rule. Id., at 1223. In the majority’s view, the state-court order was properly classified as a “legal proposition” or a “court action obtained at the behest of a federal prisoner, not ‘discovered’ by him.” Ibid. Because the fourth paragraph of the limitation rule was therefore of no avail to Johnson, the Court of Appeals majority agreed with the District Court that the time for filing expired in 1997, at the end of the 1-year grace period. Id., at 1226. The majority also agreed that Johnson had no equitable claim to toll the running of the 1-year period because he had waited too long before going back to the state court. Id., at 1226-1228. Judge Roney dissented, arguing that the state court’s order was a “fact” supporting Johnson’s § 2255 motion, a fact not discoverable prior to the order’s issuance. Id., at 1228-1229. Over one dissent, rehearing en banc was denied. 353 F. 3d 1328 (2003).

We granted certiorari, 542 U. S. 965 (2004), to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals as to whether vacatur of a prior state conviction used to enhance a federal sentence can start the 1-year limitation period under the fourth alternative of the §2255 rule. Compare 340 F. 3d 1219 (case below) (vacatur not a trigger); Brackett v. United States, 270 F. 3d 60 (CA1 2001) (same), with United States v. Gadsen, 332 F. 3d 224 (CA4 2003) (vacatur a fact not previously discoverable giving rise to a new 1-year period).

We agree with Johnson that the state-court vacatur is a matter of fact for purposes of the limitation rule in the fourth paragraph. But we also hold that the statute allows the fact of the state-court order to set the 1-year period running only if the petitioner has shown due diligence in seeking the order. Applying that qualification, we affirm.

hH l-H

The Government shares Johnson s preliminary assumption that if he filed his §2255 motion in time, he is entitled to federal resentencing now that the State has vacated one of the judgments supporting his enhanced sentence. Neither the enhancement provision of the Sentencing Guidelines applied here, nor the mandatory enhancement under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U. S. C. § 924(e), has been read to mean that the validity of a prior conviction supporting an enhanced federal sentence is beyond challenge. Cf. Lewis v. United States, 445 U. S. 55 (1980) (validity of prior conviction irrelevant under federal statute prohibiting possession of a firearm by a felon). Our cases applying these provisions assume the contrary, that a defendant given a sentence enhanced for a prior conviction is entitled to a reduction if the earlier conviction is vacated. Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485 (1994); Daniels v. United States, 532 U. S. 374 (2001).

Such was the premise in Custis v. United States, supra, even though we held that the ACCA generally created no opportunity to attack a prior state conviction collaterally at a federal sentencing proceeding, 511 U. S., at 490, and that the Constitution demands no more, id., at 496-497. We thought that Congress had not meant to make it so easy to challenge final judgments that every occasion to enhance a sentence for recidivism would turn a federal sentencing court into a forum for difficult and time-consuming reexaminations of stale state proceedings. Ibid. We recognized only one exception to this rule that collateral attacks were off-limits, and that was for challenges to state convictions allegedly obtained in violation of the right to appointed counsel, an exception we thought necessary to avoid undermining Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335 (1963). Custis v. United States, 511 U. S., at 494-496. As to challenges falling outside of that exception, we pointed out that a defendant who successfully attacked his state conviction in state court or on federal habeas review could then “apply for reopening of any federal sentence enhanced by the state sentences.” Id., at 497.

Daniels v. United States, supra, extended Custis to hold, subject to the same exception for Gideon claims, that a federal prisoner may not attack a predicate state conviction through a §2255 motion challenging an enhanced federal sentence, 532 U. S., at 376, and again we stressed considerations of administration and finality, id., at 378-380. Again, too, we acknowledged that a prisoner could proceed under §2255 after successful review of the prior state conviction on federal habeas under §2254 or favorable resort to any postconviction process available under state law, id., at 381. We simply added that if the prior conviction was no longer open to direct or collateral attack in its own right, the federal prisoner could do nothing more about his sentence enhancement. Id., at 382.

This case presents the distinct issue of how soon a prisoner, successful in his state proceeding, must challenge the federal sentence under § 2255. The resolution turns on understanding what “facts” affecting an enhanced sentence could most sensibly fall within that term as used in the fourth paragraph of the §2255 limitation provision, under which the one year runs from “the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.” Johnson says that the order vacating his prior conviction is the factual matter supporting his § 2255 claim, discovery of which triggers the refreshed 1-year period. The Court of Appeals majority said no because it understood a legally operative order of vacatur to be a mandate of law or a consequence of applying law, and therefore distinct from a matter of “ 'fact’ ” as Congress used the term in §2255. 340 F. 3d, at 1223. The United States does not endorse that law-fact distinction, but argues that the facts supporting Johnson’s § 2255 claim, for purposes of the fourth paragraph, are the facts on which he based his challenge to the validity of his state convictions.

We think none of these positions is sound, at least in its entirety. As for the Government’s proposed reading, certainly it is true that the circumstances rendering the underlying predicate conviction invalid are ultimate subjects of fact supporting the §2255 claim, in the sense that proof of those facts (or the government’s failure to negate them) is necessary to vacate the prior state conviction and eliminate the ground for the federal enhancement. But this is not enough to fit the Government’s position comfortably into paragraph.four. The text of §2255, ¶6(4), clearly links the running of the limitation period to the discovery of the “facts supporting the claim or claims presented,” but on the Government’s view, the statute of limitations may begin to run (and may even expire) before the § 2255 claim and its necessary predicate even exist. Prior to the federal conviction, a petitioner has no §2255 claim because he has no enhanced federal sentence to challenge; and prior to the state vacatur, which Daniels makes a necessary condition for relief in most cases, a petitioner cannot obtain relief under § 2255. Cf. Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp., of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 195 (1997) (statutes of limitations ordinarily do not begin to run until a plaintiff’s complete cause of action has accrued). Hence, it is highly doubtful that in §2255 challenges to enhanced sentences Congress would have meant to start the period running under paragraph four on the discoverability date of facts that may have no significance under federal law for years to come and that cannot by themselves be the basis of a § 2255 claim, Daniels v. United States, supra, at 376.

There are further reasons against applying the fourth paragraph as the Government would. Congress does not appear to have adopted a policy of enhancing federal sentences regardless of the validity of state convictions relied on for the enhancement. Custis and Daniels were decided on just the contrary, and unchallenged, understanding; it would certainly push the limits of coherence for the Court now to apply the fourth paragraph in a way that would practically close the door to relief that each of those cases specifically left open. Nor is there any reason to think Congress meant the limitation period to run earlier for the sake of preserving finality of state convictions; States are capable of providing their own limitations periods (and most of them would have barred Johnson’s challenge).

Johnson’s argument improves on the Government’s proposal by pegging the limitation period to notice of the state order eliminating the predicate required for enhancement, which is almost always necessary and always sufficient for relief. We do not find his proposal vulnerable to the point made by the majority of the Court of Appeals, that an order vacating a conviction is legally expressive or operative language that may not be treated as a matter of fact within the meaning of the statute. We commonly speak of the “fact of a prior conviction,” e. g., Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466, 490 (2000), and an order vacating a predicate conviction is spoken of as a fact just as sensibly as the order entering it. In either case, a claim of such a fact is subject to proof or disproof like any other factual issue.

But Johnson’s take on the statute carries anomalies of its own, one minor, one more serious. It is strange to say that an order vacating a conviction has been “discovered,” the term used .by paragraph four, and stranger still to speak about the date on which it could have been discovered with due diligence, when the fact happens to be the outcome of a proceeding in which the §2255 petitioner was the moving party. By bringing that proceeding, the petitioner causes the factual event to occur, after all, and unless his mail goes astray his prompt discovery of the crucial fact is virtually guaranteed through official notice.

A more serious problem is Johnson’s position that his § 2255 petition is timely under paragraph four as long as he brings it within a year of learning he succeeded in attacking the prior conviction, no matter how long he may have slumbered before starting the successful proceeding. If Johnson were right about this, a petitioner might wait a long time before raising any question about a predicate conviction, as this very case demonstrates. Of course it may well be that Johnson took his time because his basic sentence had years to run before the period of enhancement began. But letting a petitioner wait for as long as the enhancement makes no difference to his actual imprisonment, while the predicate conviction grows increasingly stale and the federal outcome is subject to question, is certainly at odds with the provision in paragraph four that the one year starts running when the operative fact “could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.” And by maximizing the time that judgments are open to question, a rule allowing that kind of delay would thwart one of AEDPA’s principal purposes, Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S., at 179; Woodford v. Garceau, 538 U. S. 202, 206 (2003), a purpose that was also central to our decisions in Custis and Daniels, see supra, at 303-304.

We think neither anomaly is serious enough, however, to justify rejecting Johnson’s basic argument that notice of the order vacating the predicate conviction is the event that starts the one year running. Our job here is to find a sensible way to apply paragraph four when the truth is that with Daniels not yet on the books AEDPA’s drafters probably never thought about the situation we face here. Of course it is peculiar to speak of “discovering” the fact of the very eventuality the petitioner himself has brought about, but when that fact is necessary to the § 2255 claim, and treating notice of it as the trigger produces a more reasonable scheme than the alternatives, the scheme should be reconciled with the statutory language if it can be. And here the fit is painless, if short on style.

While it sounds odd to speak of discovering a fact one has generated, a petitioner does not generate the fact of vacatur all by himself. He does, after all, have to learn of the court’s response in the state proceeding, and receiving notice of success can surely qualify as a kind of discovery falling within the statutory language.

That leaves us with the question of how to implement the statutory mandate that a petitioner act with due diligence in discovering the crucial fact of the vacatur order that he himself seeks. The answer is that diligence can be shown by prompt action on the part of the petitioner as soon as he is in a position to realize that he has an interest in challenging the prior conviction with its potential to enhance the later sentence. The important thing is to identify a particular time when the course of the later federal prosecution clearly shows that diligence is in order. That might be the date the federal indictment is disclosed, the date of judgment, or the date of finality after direct appeal. Picking the first date would require the quickest response and serve finality best, but it would produce some collateral litigation that federal acquittals would prove to have been needless, and it shares the same disconnection from the existence of a §2255 claim as the Government’s view of the relevant “facts,” see supra, at 305-306. If we picked the third date, collateral litigation would be minimized, but finality would come late. This shapes up as a case for choosing the bowl of porridge between the one too hot and the one too cold, and settling on the date of judgment as the moment to activate due diligence seems best to reflect the statutory text and its underlying concerns. After the entry of judgment, the subject of the § 2255 claim has come into being, the significance of inaction is clear, and very little litigation would be wasted, since most challenged federal convictions are in fact sustained.

The dissent, like Johnson, would dispense with any due diligence requirement in seeking the state vacatur order itself, on the ground that the States can impose their own limitations periods on state collateral attacks, as most States do, post, at 316 (opinion of Kennedy, J.). But the United States has an interest in the finality of sentences imposed by its own courts; §2255 is, after all, concerned directly with federal cases. As to those federal cases, due diligence is not a “requirement of [our] own design,” post, at 312, but an explicit demand in the text of § 2255, ¶ 6(4), one that reflects AEDPA’s core purposes, supra, at 307-308. The requirement of due diligence must therefore demand something more than the dissent’s willingness to accept no diligence at all, if the predicate conviction occurred in a State that itself imposes no limit of time for collaterally attacking its convictions.

The dissent suggests that due diligence is satisfied by-prompt discovery of the existence of the order vacating the state conviction. Post, at 314. Where one “discovers” a fact that one has helped to generate, however, supra, at 308-309, whether it be the result of a court proceeding or of some other process begun at the petitioner’s behest, it does not strain logic to treat required diligence in the “discovery” of that fact as entailing diligence in the steps necessary for the existence of that fact. To see why this is so, one need only consider a more commonplace use of the paragraph four limitation rule. When a petitioner bases his § 2255 claim on the result of a DNA test, it is the result of the test that is the “fac[t] supporting the claim” in the § 2255 motion, and the 1-year limitation period therefore begins to run from the date the test result is “discovered.” Yet unless it is to be read out of the statute, the due diligence requirement would say that the test result only triggers a new 1-year period if the petitioner began the testing process with reasonable promptness once the DNA sample and testing technology were available. Under the dissent’s view, however, the petitioner could wait untold years (perhaps until the death of a key prosecution witness) before calling for the DNA test, yet once he “discovered” the result of that test, he would get the benefit of a rejuvenated 1-year period regardless of his lengthy delay. Such a result simply cannot be squared with the statute’s plain text and purpose.

We accordingly apply the fourth paragraph in the situation before us by holding that from November 29, 1994, the date the District Court entered judgment in his federal case, Johnson was obliged to act diligently to obtain the state-court order vacating his predicate conviction. Had he done so, the 1-year limitation period would have run from the date he received notice of that vacatur.

II

Although Johnson knew that his conviction subjected him to the career offender enhancement, he failed to attack the predicate for enhancement by filing his state habeas petition until February 1998, more than three years after entry of judgment in the federal case. Indeed, even if we moved the burden of diligence ahead to the date of finality of the federal conviction or to AEDPA’s effective date two days later, Johnson would still have delayed unreasonably, having waited over 21 months. Johnson has offered no explanation for this delay, beyond observing that he was acting pro se and lacked the sophistication to understand the procedures. But we have never accepted pro se representation alone or procedural ignorance as an excuse for prolonged inattention when a statute’s clear policy calls for promptness, and on this record we think Johnson fell far short of reasonable diligence in challenging the state conviction. Since there is every reason to believe that prompt action would have produced a state vacatur order well over a year before he filed his § 2255 petition, the fourth paragraph of §2255 is unavailable, and Johnson does not suggest that his motion was timely under any other provision.

We accordingly affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

It is so ordered.

Justice Kennedy,

with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Scalía, and Justice Ginsburg join, dissenting.

The Court took this case to determine whether a vacatur is a “fact,” as that term is used in 28 U. S. C. §2255, ¶ 6(4), thus commencing the statute’s 1-year limitations period. The question divides the Courts of Appeals. Today the Court holds that the order of vacatur is the fact that begins the limitations period. On that point, I agree. Surprisingly, however, the Court proceeds to announce a second requirement of its own design: In order to obtain relief under § 2255, ¶ 6(4), petitioner must show he used due diligence in seeking the vacatur itself. On this point, I disagree.

In my view the Court’s new rule of prevacatur diligence is inconsistent with the statutory language; is unnecessary since States are quite capable of protecting themselves against undue delay in commencing state proceedings to vacate prior judgments; introduces an imprecise and incongruous deadline into the federal criminal process; is of sufficient uncertainty that it will require further litigation before its operation is understood; and, last but not least, drains scarce defense resources away from the prisoner’s federal criminal case in some of its most critical stages. For these reasons, I submit my respectful dissent.

I

The question on which we granted certiorari is this: “When a federal court bases an enhanced sentence on a vacated state conviction, is the vacatur of the state conviction a Tact’ supporting a prisoner’s 28 U. S. C. § 2255 claim requiring reduction of the prisoner’s sentence?” Pet. for Cert. i. In a change from the position it took in the Court of Appeals, the Government in its brief to this Court and again at oral argument all but conceded that the vacatur is a fact supporting a claim. See Brief for United States 33; Tr. of Oral Arg. 13. Seeking a new rationale to imprison petitioner for an additional eight years on the basis of a prior Georgia conviction all of us know to be void, the Government defends the Court of Appeals’ judgment on an alternative ground: Federal law requires diligence on the part of the defendant not only in bringing the vacatur to the attention of the federal court but also in commencing state proceedings to obtain the vacatur in the first place. According to the Government, petitioner’s diligence should be measured from the time a petitioner could have obtained a vacatur, i. e., as soon as the legal basis for vacatur existed. See Brief for United States 32-34. Although the Court adopts the Government’s argument in part, it comes up with a date of its own choosing from which to measure a petitioner’s diligence.

The Court is quite correct, in my view, to hold that the state-court order of vacatur itself is the critical fact which begins the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996’s 1-year limitations period. §101, 110 Stat. 1217. Ante, at 309. It is an accepted use of the law’s vocabulary to say that the entry or the setting aside of a judgment is a fact. Ante, at 307. An order vacating a judgment is a definite and significant fact of litigation history. So the Court is on firm ground to say a state judgment of vacatur begins the 1-year limitations period. Even aside from the textual support for petitioner’s position, our opinions in Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485 (1994), and Daniels v. United States, 532 U. S. 374 (2001), were decided on the understanding that Congress did not expect federal sentences to be enhanced irrespective of the validity of the state conviction relied upon for the enhancement. Ante, at 305-306. Those cases suggest that the proper procedure for reducing a federal sentence enhanced on the basis of an invalid state conviction is to seek a vacatur of a state conviction, and then proceed through federal habeas.

The Court is correct, too, to say that the whole problem of vacating state-court judgments fits rather awkwardly into the language of §2255, ¶ 6(4). Ante, at 308. That is because ¶ 6(4) is designed to address myriad claims, including post-trial factual discoveries such as violations of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), witness recantations, new exculpatory evidence, and the like. Having gone this far, the Court in my view should simply accept that § 2255, ¶ 6(4), is not a particularly good fit with the vacatur problem.

The Court, however, does not accept the consequence of its own correct determination. Instead it finds a need to make the words “discovery” and “due diligence” more applicable to the instance of vacatur. Hence it adopts the second requirement: “[W]e also hold that the statute allows the fact of the state-court order to set the 1-year period running only if the petitioner has shown due diligence in seeking the order.” Ante, at 302. This added condition cannot be found in the statute’s design or in its text. It creates, furthermore, its own set of problems. Section 2255, ¶ 6(4), neither requires nor accommodates the Court’s federal rule of diligence respecting state-court proceedings.

II

The 1-year period begins from the date on which the facts supporting the claim or claims presented could have been discovered through the exercise of due diligence.” 28 U. S. C. § 2255, ¶ 6(4). As the Court agrees that vacatur is the fact which begins the 1-year period,' it would seem to follow that the diligence requirement pertains to presenting the fact of vacatur to the federal court. A petitioner cannot discover the vacatur until it issues. If the State has allowed the vacatur subject to its own rules respecting timely motions or applications and if petitioner has acted diligently in discovering entry of that vacatur, the proper conclusion is that he may bring a § 2255 petition within one year of obtaining the vacatur, or one year of reasonably discovering it.

The only way the majority’s construction can fit the statute is if the controlling fact is the circumstance giving rise to the vacatur, not the vacatur itself. Yet the majority resists that proposition, for it measures the 1-year period from the date the vacatur is ordered. Ante, at 809.

The majority rejects petitioner’s proposed construction of the “discovered through the exercise of due diligence” language, which I would adopt, for two reasons. First, the Court observes it is “strange to say that an order vacating a conviction has been ‘discovered,’ . . . and stranger still to speak about the date on which it could have been discovered with due diligence, when the fact happens to be the outcome of a proceeding in which the § 2255 petitioner was the moving party.” Ante, at 307. By bringing vacatur proceedings, petitioner himself causes the factual event to occur, and his discovery of it is “virtually guaranteed.” Ibid. The Court is concerned that the due diligence language does barely any work under petitioner’s interpretation because the language is too easily satisfied.

Though I agree it is a bit awkward, in my view it is well within the realm of reasonable statutory construction to apply the term “discover” to an order vacating a. conviction. The ordinary meaning of the term “discovery,” after all, is “the act, process, or an instance of gaining knowledge of or ascertaining the existence of something previously unknown or unrecognized.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 647 (1993). See also Black’s Law Dictionary 465 (6th ed. 1990) (“[t]o get first sight or knowledge of”). There may be instances when there is a mistake in recording or entering the vacatur, or when it is not clear that the order in fact includes that relief, or when a prisoner’s transfer or extradition reasonably causes the prisoner to learn of the order in some uncommon way. In these instances, admittedly infrequent, the word “discover” makes perfect sense. True, the due diligence language does not do much work when a petitioner receives prompt notice in the ordinary course. As explained, however, § 2255, ¶ 6(4), is designed to cover various circumstances, and many other types of claims. Ante, at 310.

To bolster its prevacatur diligence requirement, the Court elects to resolve a case not before it, i e., a hypothetical involving DNA testing. Ibid. Quite apart from the impropriety of deciding an important question not remotely presented in the case, the Court’s resolution of its hypothetical is, in my view, far from self-evident. It has little to do, moreover, with the question of vacatur of a state-court judgment. We have a special obligation to the federal system to respect state-court judgments. Rather than imposing a federal rule of diligence on top of existing state-court rules for determining when a vacatur motion should be made, I would treat the critical fact as the date on which the state court orders vacatur. That, after all, is the time when the grounds for the claim to be made in federal court (the claim that an enhancement was improper) have become established under conventional principles commanding respect for state judgments, or allowing them to be set aside.

The second reason the majority rejects Johnson’s position is because it is troubled by the prospect that a petitioner “might wait a long time before raising any question about a predicate conviction . . . .” Ante, at 307. Even if this concern were a sufficient basis for adding the majority’s preva-catur diligence requirement to the statute and creating a two-tier diligence structure, the concern is overstated. In most instances, States can, and do, impose diligence by limiting the time for requesting a vacatur of a prior state conviction. It was represented at oral argument that all but about six States impose a limitation by statute or laches. Tr. of Oral Arg. 10. Even in those six States, furthermore, it is not clear that equitable defenses would not apply. Id., at 17-18.

Any States that do not impose time limitations are free to do so if deemed necessary to protect the integrity of their own judgments, so a federal time limit is not required. This is illustrated by the instant case. When Johnson sought state relief, Georgia imposed no limitation on a petitioner’s ability to obtain a vacatur. Ante, at 306, n. 5. Since then, however, Georgia has enacted a 4-year limitations period for proceeding to obtain a vacatur. The majority’s apparent concern that, absent its interpretation of § 2255, ¶ 6(4), petitioners have some incentive to delay proceedings to vacate a conviction seems quite unfounded.

The majority’s construction, furthermore, can allow for the same delay it seeks to avoid. After all, the Court holds that the due diligence requirement is triggered only by a federal judgment. Consider a simple hypothetical. Suppose that a petitioner suffers a state conviction in 1980, and, despite learning in 1985 that his conviction is constitutionally infirm, does nothing. Suppose further he is sentenced for a federal crime in 2000. Under the majority’s view, the petitioner’s obligation to question his state conviction is not triggered until 2000, a full 15 years after he knew the basis for vacatur. Despite the adaptation it makes to §2255, ¶ 6(4), the majority has failed to create an incentive for petitioner to act promptly in instituting state proceedings. The incentive exists under state law, and the Court does not need to supplement it.

The error of the majority’s position is further revealed by its selection of what I consider to be an incorrect date for triggering the prevacatur diligence requirement. It holds that the triggering event is set at the date of petitioner’s federal judgment. Ante, at 310 (setting November 29,1994, the date of judgment, as the date triggering the diligence requirement).

This rule of the Court’s own contrivance is adopted, in my respectful submission, without full appreciation for the dynamic of the criminal process and its demands on counsel. Assuming for the moment that some event in the federal court should start the time period for pursuing state relief, surely the entry of judgment is ill chosen. This means the judgment is a mandatory beginning point for collateral proceedings to correct a judgment and sentence not yet final.

If the Court wants to invent its own rule and use an event in the federal criminal proceeding to commence a limitations period (and I disagree with both propositions), the date the judgment becomes final, not the date of judgment in the trial court, is the proper point of beginning.

The law, and the decisions of this Court, put extraordinary demands on defense counsel. Immediately after a judgment, defense counsel must concentrate on ensuring that evidence of trial misconduct does not disappear and that grounds for appeal are preserved and presented. Today the Court says defense counsel must divert scarce resources from these heavy responsibilities to commence collateral proceedings to attack state convictions.

In this case seven different convictions in Georgia may have been relevant. In other cases convictions that might enhance have been entered in different States. See, e.g., Custis, 511 U. S., at 487. It is most troubling for a Court that insists on high standards of performance for defense counsel now to instruct that collateral proceedings must be commenced in one or more States during the critical time immediately after judgment and before appeal.

If the Court is to insist upon its own second tier of diligence, the dynamics of the criminal system and ordinary rules for determining when collateral proceedings become necessary should instruct us that, for federal purposes, this tier begins when the federal conviction becomes final. This also ensures that the federal court does not make demands on counsel and on state courts that are pointless if the federal conviction is overturned. Perhaps the Court rejects the date of final judgment as triggering its requirement because it adds little to the state requirements of diligence. If this surmise is correct, of course, it demonstrates that the Court should not adopt its interpretation in the first place.

Aside from diverting resources from a petitioner’s federal case, the majority’s approach creates new uncertainty, giving rise to future litigation. It leaves unsaid what standard will be used for measuring whether a petitioner acted promptly, forcing litigants and lawyers to scramble to state court in the hopes they satisfy the Court’s vague prevacatur diligence requirement. The Court tells us nothing about what to make of existing state standards regarding diligence. Assume a State has a 4-year limitations period for bringing a vacatur action and a petitioner acts within two years of his state conviction. Do we look to state law as a benchmark for what should be presumed to be diligent? The murkiness of the Court’s new rule will set in motion satellite litigation on this and related points.

In lieu of adopting an interpretation that creates more problems than it avoids, I would hold that the order vacating a prior state conviction is the fact supporting a § 2255 claim, and the statute is satisfied if the § 2255 proceeding is commenced within one year of its entry, unless the petitioner shows it was not reasonably discovered until later in which case that date will control when the statute begins to run. For these reasons, I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

       The United States represents that Johnson specified invalid waiver of counsel in support of the claim. Brief for United States 7. The opinion of the Court of Appeals in Johnson’s direct appeal, cited as authority by the Government, indicates only that Johnson claimed invalid waiver of his constitutional rights. United States v. Johnson, No. 94-9402 (CA11, Dec. 22, 1995) (per curiam), App. 7, 8. While the Court of Appeals’ opinion in the instant case specified that Johnson claimed a violation of his right to counsel, 340 F. 3d 1219, 1221 (2003), we know of nothing in the record indicating that either party ever argued that his objection could have been litigated under the Gideon exception recognized in Custis v. United States, 511 U. S. 485 (1994), see infra, at 303.

       April 25, 1997, is the date Johnson’s motion was stamped filed in the District Court. Johnson did not contend below, and nothing in the record indicates, that his motion should have been deemed filed on an earlier date by operation of the so-called prison mailbox rule, see Houston v. Lack, 487 U. S. 266 (1988).

       Hindsight after Daniels v. United States, 532 U. S. 374 (2001), reveals that Johnson’s claim likely would have brought his challenge within the Gideon exception, entitling him to attack the state conviction collaterally in a timely §2255 motion after enhancement of his federal sentence, even without having first resorted to state court. See infra, at 304.

       The Daniels Court allowed that “there may be rare cases in which no channel of review was actually available to a defendant with respect to a prior conviction, due to no fault of his own,” in which case a prisoner might be able to use a motion under § 2255 to challenge the prior conviction as well as the federal sentence based on it. 532 U. S., at 383-384. As in Daniels, the circumstances of this case do not call for further exploration of that possibility.

       It is also doubtful that Congress meant the federal limitation period to begin running, let alone expire, at a time when a typical state convict will have no inducement under federal law to act. On the Government’s reading, in fact, a defendant could be obligated to act at a time when he had no real incentive for questioning the state conviction. Many of those convictions that in time become predicates for enhancing later sentences are, like the one here, the consequences of guilty pleas entered on terms defendants are willing to accept. Thus, a federal limitation rule obligating a defendant to turn around and attack a state guilty plea he has just entered would in practice place most predicate convictions beyond challenge as a matter of federal law.

       At the time Johnson filed his state habeas petition, Georgia law would have permitted him to wait indefinitely before seeking reversal of his 1989 convictions. The Georgia Legislature amended the state habeas statute in 2004 to create a 4-year statute of limitations for petitions for writs of habeas corpus. Ga. Code Ann. § 9-14-42 (Lexis Supp. 2004).

       Certainly, as the dissent notes, post, at 318-319, “due diligence” is an inexact measure of how much delay is too much. But the imprecision here is no greater than elsewhere in the law when diligence must be shown, and the statute’s use of an imprecise standard is no justification for depriving the statutory language of any meaning independent of corresponding state law, as the dissent would have us do. Post, at 319.

       Once a petitioner diligently has initiated state-court proceedings, any delay in those proceedings that is not attributable to the petitioner will not impair the availability of the paragraph four limitation rule, once those proceedings finally conclude. We further recognize that the facts underlying the challenge to the state-court conviction might themselves not be discoverable through the exercise of due diligence until after the date of the federal judgment. In such circumstances, once the facts become discoverable and the prisoner proceeds diligently to state court, the limitation period will run from the date of notice of the eventual state-court vacatur. Finally, we note that a petitioner who has been inadequately diligent can still avail himself of paragraph four if he can show that he filed the §2255 motion within a year of the date he would have received notice of vacatur if he had acted promptly, though this may be a difficult showing.