425 U.S. 501 (1976)

ESTELLE, CORRECTIONS DIRECTOR
v.
WILLIAMS.

No. 74-676.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued October 7, 1975. Decided May 3, 1976. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT.

Dunklin Sullivan, Assistant Attorney General of Texas, *502 argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were John L. Hill, Attorney General, David M. Kendall, First Assistant Attorney General, and Joe B. Dibrell and Lonny F. Zwiener, Assistant Attorneys General.

Ben L. Aderholt, by appointment of the Court, 421 U. S. 907, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent. [Mr. Aderholt represented the respondent before this Court only. Cf. post, at 513-514, 514, and 523.]

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari in this case to determine whether an accused who is compelled to wear identifiable prison clothing at his trial by a jury is denied due process or equal protection of the laws.

In November 1970, respondent Williams was convicted in state court in Harris County, Tex., for assault with intent to commit murder with malice. The crime occurred during an altercation between respondent and his former landlord on the latter's property. The evidence showed that respondent returned to the apartment complex where he had formerly resided to visit a female tenant. While there, respondent and his former landlord became involved in a quarrel. Heated words were exchanged, and a fight ensued. Respondent struck the landlord with a knife in the neck, chest, and abdomen, severely wounding him.

Unable to post bond, respondent was held in custody while awaiting trial. When he learned that he was to go on trial, respondent asked an officer at the jail for his civilian clothes. This request was denied. As a result, respondent appeared at trial in clothes that were distinctly marked as prison issue. Neither respondent nor his counsel raised an objection to the prison attire at any time.

*503 A jury returned a verdict of guilty on the charge of assault with intent to murder with malice. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction. Williams v. State, 477 S. W. 2d 24 (1972). Williams then sought release in the United States District Court on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Although holding that requiring a defendant to stand trial in prison garb was inherently unfair, the District Court denied relief on the ground that the error was harmless.

The Court of Appeals reversed on the basis of its own prior holding in Hernandez v. Beto, 443 F. 2d 634 (CA5), cert. denied, 404 U. S. 897 (1971). 500 F. 2d 206. The Fifth Circuit disagreed with the District Court solely on the issue of harmless error.

(1)

The right to a fair trial is a fundamental liberty secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. Drope v. Missouri, 420 U. S. 162, 172 (1975). The presumption of innocence, although not articulated in the Constitution, is a basic component of a fair trial under our system of criminal justice. Long ago this Court stated:

"The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law." Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 432, 453 (1895).

To implement the presumption, courts must be alert to factors that may undermine the fairness of the factfinding process. In the administration of criminal justice, courts must carefully guard against dilution of the principle that guilt is to be established by probative evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970).

*504 The actual impact of a particular practice on the judgment of jurors cannot always be fully determined. But this Court has left no doubt that the probability of deleterious effects on fundamental rights calls for close judicial scrutiny. Estes v. Texas, 381 U. S. 532 (1965); In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133 (1955). Courts must do the best they can to evaluate the likely effects of a particular procedure, based on reason, principle, and common human experience.

The potential effects of presenting an accused before the jury in prison attire need not, however, be measured in the abstract. Courts have, with few exceptions,^[1] determined that an accused should not be compelled to go to trial in prison or jail clothing because of the possible impairment of the presumption so basic to the adversary system. Gaito v. Brierley, 485 F. 2d 86 (CA3 1973); Hernandez v. Beto, supra; Brooks v. Texas, 381 F. 2d 619 (CA5 1967); Commonwealth v. Keeler, 216 Pa. Super. 193, 264 A. 2d 407 (1970); Miller v. State, 249 Ark. 3, 457 S. W. 2d 848 (1970); People v. Shaw, 381 Mich. 467, 164 N. W. 2d 7 (1969); People v. Zapata, 220 Cal. App. 2d 903, 34 Cal. Rptr. 171 (1963), cert. denied, 377 U. S. 406 (1964); Eaddy v. People, 115 Colo. 488, 174 P. 2d 717 (1946). The American Bar Association's Standards for Criminal Justice also disapprove the practice. ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Trial by Jury § 4.1 (b), p. 91 (App. Draft 1968). This is a recognition that the constant reminder of the accused's condition implicit in such distinctive, identifiable *505 attire may affect a juror's judgment. The defendant's clothing is so likely to be a continuing influence throughout the trial that, not unlike placing a jury in the custody of deputy sheriffs who were also witnesses for the prosecution, an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors coming into play. Turner v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 466, 473 (1965).

That such factors cannot always be avoided is manifest in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U. S. 337 (1970), where we expressly recognized that "the sight of shackles and gags might have a significant effect on the jury's feelings about the defendant . . . ," id., at 344; yet the Court upheld the practice when necessary to control a contumacious defendant. For that reason, the Court authorized removal of a disruptive defendant from the courtroom or, alternatively, binding and gagging of the accused until he agrees to conduct himself properly in the courtroom.

Unlike physical restraints, permitted under Allen, supra, compelling an accused to wear jail clothing furthers no essential state policy. That it may be more convenient for jail administrators, a factor quite unlike the substantial need to impose physical restraints upon contumacious defendants,^[2] provides no justification for the practice. Indeed, the State of Texas asserts no interest whatever in maintaining this procedure.

Similarly troubling is the fact that compelling the accused to stand trial in jail grab operates usually against only those who cannot post bail prior to trial. Persons who can secure release are not subjected to this condition. To impose the condition on one category of defendants, over objection, would be repugnant to the *506 concept of equal justice embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956).

(2)

The Fifth Circuit, in this as well as in prior decisions, has not purported to adopt a per se rule invalidating all convictions where a defendant had appeared in identifiable prison clothes. That court has held, for instance, that the harmless-error doctrine is applicable to this line of cases. 500 F. 2d, at 210-212. See also Thomas v. Beto, 474 F. 2d 981, cert. denied, 414 U. S. 871 (1973); Hernandez v. Beto, supra, at 637. Other courts are in accord. Bentley v. Crist, 469 F. 2d 854, 856 (CA9 1972); Watt v. Page, 452 F. 2d 1174, 1176-1177 (CA10), cert. denied, 405 U. S. 1070 (1972). In this case, the Court of Appeals quoted the language of Mr. Justice Douglas, speaking for the Court in Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969):

"We held in Chapman v. California that `before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.' We said that . . . not all `trial errors which violate the Constitution automatically call for reversal.' " Id., at 251-252 (citations omitted).

In Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967), the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Black, held:

"We are urged by petitioners to hold that all federal constitutional errors, regardless of the facts and circumstances, must always be deemed harmful. Such a holding, as petitioners correctly point out, would require an automatic reversal of their convictions and make further discussion unnecessary. We decline to adopt any such rule. All 50 States have harmless-error statutes or rules, and the United *507 States long ago through its Congress established for its courts the rule that judgments shall not be reversed for `errors or defects which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties.' . . . We conclude that there may be some constitutional errors which in the setting of a particular case are so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring the automatic reversal of the conviction." Id., at 21-22 (citation and footnote omitted).

In other situations, when, for example, the accused is being tried for an offense committed in confinement, or in an attempted escape, courts have refused to find error in the practice. In United States ex rel. Stahl v. Henderson, 472 F. 2d 556 (CA5), cert. denied, 411 U. S. 971 (1973), the Court of Appeals declined to overturn a conviction where the defendant, albeit tried in jail clothes, was charged with having murdered another inmate while confined in prison. "No prejudice can result from seeing that which is already known." 472 F. 2d, at 557. In the present case, the Court of Appeals concluded:

"A different result may be appropriate where the defendant is on trial for an offense allegedly committed while he was in prison, because the jury would learn of his incarceration in any event." 500 F. 2d, at 209 n. 5.

Contra: People v. Roman, 35 N. Y. 2d 978, 324 N. E. 2d 885 (1975).

Consequently, the courts have refused to embrace a mechanical rule vitiating any conviction, regardless of the circumstances, where the accused appeared before the jury in prison garb. Instead, they have recognized that the particular evil proscribed is compelling a defendant, against his will, to be tried in jail attire. The *508 reason for this judicial focus upon compulsion is simple; instances frequently arise where a defendant prefers to stand trial before his peers in prison garments. The cases show, for example, that it is not an uncommon defense tactic to produce the defendant in jail clothes in the hope of eliciting sympathy from the jury. Anderson v. Watt, 475 F. 2d 881, 882 (CA10 1973); Watt v. Page, supra, at 1176. Cf. Garcia v. Beto, 452 F. 2d 655, 656 (CA5 1971). This is apparently an accepted practice in Texas courts, Barber v. State, 477 S. W. 2d 868, 870 (Tex. Crim. App. 1972), including the court where respondent was tried.

Courts have therefore required an accused to object to being tried in jail garments, just as he must invoke or abandon other rights.^[3] The Fifth Circuit has held: "A defendant may not remain silent and willingly go to trial in prison garb and thereafter claim error." Hernandez v. Beto, 443 F. 2d, at 637. The essential meaning of the *509 Court of Appeals' decision in Hernandez has been described by that court as follows:

"We held [in Hernandez] that the defendant and his attorney had the burden to make known that the defendant desired to be tried in civilian clothes before the state could be accountable for his being tried in jail clothes . . . ." United States ex rel. Stahl v. Henderson, 472 F. 2d, at 557.^[4]

Similarly, the Ninth Circuit has indicated that the courts must determine whether an accused "was in fact compelled to wear prison clothing at his state court trial." Bentley v. Crist, 469 F. 2d, at 856. See also Dennis v. Dees, 278 F. Supp. 354, 359 (ED La. 1968), disapproved on other grounds, United States ex rel. Stahl v. Henderson, supra, at 557; People v. Roman, 35 N. Y. 2d, at 978-979, 324 N. E. 2d, at 885-886; People v. Shaw, 381 Mich. 467, 164 N. W. 2d 7 (1969).

(3)

The record is clear that no objection was made to the *510 trial judge concerning the jail attire either before or at any time during the trial. This omission plainly did not result from any lack of appreciation of the issue, for respondent had raised the question with the jail attendant prior to trial. At trial, defense counsel expressly referred to respondent's attire during voir dire. The trial judge was thus informed that respondent's counsel was fully conscious of the situation.^[5]

Despite respondent's failure to raise the issue at trial, the Court of Appeals held:

"Waiver of the objection cannot be inferred merely from failure to object if trial in prison garb is customary in the jurisdiction." 500 F. 2d, at 208.

The District Court had concluded that at the time of respondent's trial the majority of nonbailed defendants in Harris County were indeed tried in jail clothes. From this, the Court of Appeals concluded that the practice followed in respondent's case was customary. Ibid.

However, that analysis ignores essential facts adduced at the evidentiary hearing. Notwithstanding the evidence as to the general practice in Harris County, there was no finding that nonbailed defendants were compelled to stand trial in prison garments if timely objection was made to the trial judge. On the contrary, the District Court concluded that the practice of the particular judge presiding in respondent's case was to permit any accused who so desired to change into civilian clothes:

"There is no doubt but that the [judge] had a *511 practice of allowing defendants to stand trial in civilian clothing, if requested, a practice evidently followed by certain of the other judges as well." Williams v. Beto, 364 F. Supp. 335, 343 (1973).^[6]

The state judge's policy was confirmed at the evidentiary hearing by the prosecutor and by a defense attorney who practiced in the judge's court.

Significantly, at the evidentiary hearing respondent's trial counsel did not intimate that he feared any adverse consequences attending an objection to the procedure.^[7] There is nothing to suggest that there would have been any prejudicial effect on defense counsel had he made objection, given the decisions on this point in that jurisdiction. Four years before respondent's trial the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had held: "It is inherently unfair to try a defendant for crime while garbed in his jail uniform . . . ." Brooks v. Texas, 381 F. 2d, at 624. Similarly, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had held: "[E]very effort should be made to avoid trying an accused while in jail garb." Ring v. State, 450 S. W. 2d 85, 88 (1970).^[8] Prior Texas cases *512 had made it clear that an objection should be interposed. See Wilkinson v. State, 423 S. W. 2d 311, 313 (Tex. Crim. App. 1968); Ring v. State, supra, at 88.

Nothing in this record, therefore, warrants a conclusion that respondent was compelled to stand trial in jail garb or that there was sufficient reason to excuse the failure to raise the issue before trial.^[9] Nor can the trial judge be faulted for not asking the respondent or his counsel whether he was deliberately going to trial in jail clothes. To impose this requirement suggests that the trial judge operates under the same burden here as he would in the situation in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938), where the issue concerned whether the accused willingly stood trial without the benefit of counsel. Under our adversary system, once a defendant has the assistance of counsel the vast array of trial decisions, strategic and tactical, which must be made before and during trial rests with the accused and his attorney. Any other approach would rewrite the duties of trial judges and counsel in our legal system.

Accordingly, although the State cannot, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, compel an accused to stand trial before a jury while dressed in identifiable prison clothes, the failure to make an objection to the court as to being tried in such clothes, for whatever reason, *513 is sufficient to negate the presence of compulsion necessary to establish a constitutional violation.^[10]

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

MR. JUSTICE POWELL, with whom MR. JUSTICE STEWART joins, concurring.

I concur in the opinion of the Court. As the Court's opinion and the dissenting opinion take such divergent views of the case, I write separately to identify specifically the considerations I deem controlling.

Respondent, Harry Lee Williams, was tried while clad in prison issue. Despite differences over the relevance of "compulsion" in this case, the Court opinion and the dissenting opinion essentially agree that a defendant has a constitutional right not to be so tried. The disagreement is over the significance to be attributed to Williams' failure to object at trial.

As relevant to this case, there are two situations in which a conviction should be left standing despite the claimed infringement of a constitutional right. The first situation arises when it can be shown that the substantive right in question was consensually relinquished. The other situation arises when a defendant has made an "inexcusable procedural default" in failing to object at a time when a substantive right could have been protected. *514 Hart, Foreword: The Time Chart of the Justices, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 84, 118 (1959); see American Bar Association Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Post-Conviction Remedies 35-37 (App. Draft 1968).

Williams was represented by retained, experienced counsel. It is conceded that his counsel was fully aware of the "prison garb" issue^[1] and elected to raise no objection simply because he thought objection would be futile. The record also shows that the state judge who presided at Williams' trial "had a practice of allowing defendants to stand trial in civilian clothing, if requested . . . ." 364 F. Supp. 335, 343 (1973). It thus is apparent that had an objection been interposed by Williams to trial in prison garb, the issue here presented would not have arisen.

This case thus presents a situation that occurs frequently during a criminal trial—namely, a defendant's failing to object to an incident of trial that implicates a constitutional right. As is often the case in such situations, a timely objection would have allowed its cure. As is also frequently the case with such trial-type rights as that involved here, counsel's failure to object in itself is susceptible of interpretation as a tactical choice. Ante, at 507-508.

It is my view that a tactical choice or procedural default of the nature of that involved here ordinarily should operate,^[2] as a matter of federal law, to preclude *515 the later raising of the substantive right.^[3] We generally disfavor inferred waivers of constitutional rights. See Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464 (1939); Barker v. Wingo, 407 U. S. 514, 525-526 (1972). That policy, however, need not be carried to the length of allowing counsel for a defendant deliberately to forgo objection to a curable trial defect, even though he is aware of the factual and legal basis for an objection, simply because he thought objection would be futile.^[4]

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL concurs, dissenting.

I dissent. The Court's statement that "[t]he defendant's clothing is so likely to be a continuing influence throughout the trial that . . . an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors" affecting the jurors' judgment, thus presenting the possibility of an unjustified verdict of guilt, ante, at 505, concedes that respondent's trial in identifiable prison garb^[1] constituted a denial of *516 due process of law. The judgment setting aside respondent's conviction is nevertheless reversed on the ground that respondent was not compelled by the State to wear the prison garb. The Court does not—for on this record plainly the Court could not—rest the reversal on a finding that respondent knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently consented to be tried in such attire, and thus had waived his due process right. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). Rather, for the first time, the Court confines due process protections by defining a right that materially affects the fairness and accuracy of the fact-finding process in terms of state compulsion, a concept which, although relevant in the context of the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, is simply inapposite to constitutional analysis concerning due process in criminal proceedings. The end result of this definitional approach is to impute the effect of waiver to the failure of respondent or his counsel to apprise the trial judge of respondent's objection to being tried in prison garb. This not only results in an illogical delineation of the particular right involved in this case, but also introduces into this Court's jurisprudence a novel and dangerously unfair test of surrender of basic constitutional rights to which I cannot agree.^[2]

*517 I

The Court concedes that respondent was denied due process of law: there is a due process violation if the State denies an accused's objection to being tried in such garb, ante, at 504-505, 505, 512, 512-513, and as will be developed, there is no relevant constitutional difference concerning that due process right if the accused has not objected to the practice.

One of the essential due process safeguards that attends the accused at his trial is the benefit of the presumption of innocence—"that bedrock `axiomatic and elementary' principle whose `enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.' " In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 363 (1970), quoting Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 432, 453 (1895). See also, e. g., Deutch v. United States, 367 U. S. 456, 471 (1961); Sinclair v. United States, 279 U. S. 263, 296-297 (1929). *518 This presumption of innocence is given concrete substance by the due process requirement that imposes on the prosecution the burden of proving the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. "The accused during a criminal prosecution has at stake interests of immense importance, both because of the possibility that he may lose his liberty upon conviction and because of the certainty that he would be stigmatized by the conviction. Accordingly, a society that values the good name and freedom of every individual should not condemn a man for commission of a crime when there is reasonable doubt about his guilt." In re Winship, supra, at 363-364. The "prime instrument for reducing the risk of convictions resting on factual error," id., at 363, is the reasonable-doubt standard. When an accused is tried in identifiable prison garb, the dangers of denial of a fair trial and the possibility of a verdict not based on the evidence are obvious.

Identifiable prison garb robs an accused of the respect and dignity accorded other participants in a trial and constitutionally due the accused as an element of the presumption of innocence, and surely tends to brand him in the eyes of the jurors with an unmistakable mark of guilt. Jurors may speculate that the accused's pretrial incarceration, although often the result of his inability to raise bail, is explained by the fact he poses a danger to the community or has a prior criminal record; a significant danger is thus created of corruption of the factfinding process through mere suspicion. The prejudice may only be subtle and jurors may not even be conscious of its deadly impact, but in a system in which every person is presumed innocent until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the Due Process Clause forbids toleration of the risk. Jurors required by the presumption of innocence to accept the accused as a peer, an individual like themselves who is innocent until proved guilty, may well *519 see in an accused garbed in prison attire an obviously guilty person to be recommitted by them to the place where his clothes clearly show he belongs. It is difficult to conceive of any other situation more fraught with risk to the presumption of innocence and the standard of reasonable doubt.

Trial in identifiable prison garb also entails additional dangers to the accuracy and objectiveness of the factfinding process. For example, an accused considering whether to testify in his own defense must weigh in his decision how jurors will react to his being paraded before them in such attire. It is surely reasonable to be concerned whether jurors will be less likely to credit the testimony of an individual whose garb brands him a criminal. And the problem will most likely confront the indigent accused who appears in prison garb only because he was too poor to make bail. In that circumstance, the Court's concession that no prosecutorial interest is served by trying the accused in prison clothes, ante, at 505, has an ironical ring.^[3]

In light of the effect of trial in prison garb in denying the accused the benefit of the presumption of innocence and undercutting the reasonable-doubt standard, it escapes me how the Court can delineate the right established in this case as the right not to be compelled to wear prison garb. If, as the Court holds, the clothes of the accused who has unsuccessfully objected to wearing prison garb (and thus is "compelled" to wear them) unconstitutionally disadvantages his case, obviously the prison clothes of the nonobjecting accused are similarly *520 unconstitutionally disadvantageous. From the jury's perspective, the situations of the objecting and the nonobjecting defendants are in every respect identical; if the clothes of the accused who has objected to the court will create improper negative inferences in the minds of the jurors, so too must the clothes of the nonobjecting accused. Nothing in logic or experience suggests that jurors, who need have no knowledge that an objection was lodged with the court, will react any differently in the two situations. It baffles me how the Court, having conceded that trial in identifiable prison garb denigrates the accused's presumption of innocence, can then make the constitutional determination turn on whether or not the accused informed the trial court that he objected; since an objection is irrelevant to the purpose underlying the prohibition of trial in prison garb, the Court's delineation of the due process right in this case—confining the due process safeguard to situations of state "compulsion" —is irrational on its face.^[4]

*521 To be sure, an accused may knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently consent to be tried in prison garb. Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458 (1938). But the Court, without any reason for departing from this standard, has simply subverted it by promulgating the novel and dangerous doctrine that a basic due process safeguard, affecting the fairness and accuracy of the factfinding procedure, is a contingent right that does not even come into existence until it is affirmatively asserted. Is the Court today thus signaling the demise of the Johnson v. Zerbst voluntary waiver test as the standard for determination of the surrender of constitutional protections?^[5]*522 For certainly if failure to object to trial in prison garb, even where the accused has not been shown to know that he might object, surrenders so basic a constitutional *523 right as that securing fairness and accuracy of the factfinding process, the Court has totally eviscerated the traditional doctrine that loss of such rights cannot be presumed from inaction.^[6]

II

JUSTICES POWELL and STEWART concur in this evisceration of fundamental due process rights, but on the basis of a rationale essentially different from the rationale of the Court's opinion. In that circumstance their joining in the Court's opinion is puzzling. For although the opinion of the Court, admittedly obscure, may be interpreted either as importing the concept of "compulsion" into areas to which it is inapposite or as diluting the standard for waiver of fundamental constitutional rights, the concurring opinion would prefer to reverse the Court of Appeals on the ground that respondent—or more properly, respondent's attorney—committed "an inexcusable procedural default" or "tactical choice" that precludes his present assertion of this substantive right. Ante, at 513, 514. Because the concurring opinion obfuscates various issues, and because the import of this statement and the true rationale of the concurring opinion are brought into better focus by today's opinion for the Court in Francis v. Henderson, post, p. 536, which does properly present a question of procedural default, it *524 is essential to delineate two separate concepts relating to methods by which criminal defendants may yield or lose constitutional rights.

One concept is that of "waiver" which, at least with respect to constitutional rights affecting the fairness and accuracy of the factfinding process, means that the accused has engaged in conduct which may be characterized as "an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege." Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S., at 464; see n. 6, supra. If an accused has knowingly waived rights to which he was otherwise entitled, he has not, on the merits of his claim, been unconstitutionally deprived of anything. A separate concept is that of "procedural default," which involves the manner in which an accused may forfeit rights by not asserting them according to the strictures of a State's procedural rules. If the accused has committed a procedural default, there may never be an adjudication of the underlying constitutional claim on the merits. That problem was addressed in Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963), which held that "the federal habeas judge may in his discretion deny relief to an applicant who has deliberately by-passed the orderly procedure of the state courts and in so doing has forfeited his state court remedies." Id., at 438. However, Fay was emphatic that it was to be "very clear that this grant of discretion is not to be interpreted as a permission to introduce legal fictions into federal habeas corpus," id., at 439, and unambiguously explained that the "deliberate by-pass" test for procedural defaults was the analogue of the "knowing and intelligent" waiver standard for loss of constitutional rights in the absence of a procedural rule concerning their assertion:

"The classic definition of waiver enunciated in Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464—`an intentional *525 relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege'—furnishes the controlling standard. If a habeas applicant, after consultation with competent counsel or otherwise, understandingly and knowingly forewent the privilege of seeking to vindicate his federal claims in the state courts, whether for strategic, tactical, or any other reasons that can fairly be described as the deliberate by-passing of state procedures, then it is open to the federal court on habeas to deny him all relief if the state courts refused to entertain his federal claims on the merits— though of course only after the federal court has satisfied itself, by holding a hearing or by some other means, of the facts bearing upon the applicant's default. . . . At all events we wish it clearly understood that the standard here put forth depends on the considered choice of the petitioner. . . . A choice made by counsel not participated in by the petitioner does not automatically bar relief. Nor does a state court's finding of waiver bar independent determination of the question by the federal courts on habeas, for waiver affecting federal rights is a federal question." Ibid.

See also Francis v. Henderson, post, at 543-545, and n. 2 (BRENNAN, J., dissenting). When an accused has deliberately bypassed the State's mechanisms for adjudicating constitutional rights, a federal court generally need not address the merits of the underlying constitutional claim; as a corollary, when the state courts address the constitutional claim on the merits, the State may not seek to prohibit habeas relief on the ground that the accused was precluded from raising the claim due to a procedural default. See, e. g., Lefkowitz v. Newsome, 420 U. S. 283, 292 n. 9 (1975).

With this background in mind, two glaring inadequacies *526 in the concurring opinion become manifest. First, the issue of procedural default under state law is no