Charles Russell Rhines v. Douglas Weber, Warden (544 U.S. 269)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 30, 2005 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 544 U.S. 269 · 125 S. Ct. 1528
- Decided
- March 30, 2005
- Term
- October Term 2004
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
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…
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