Case Citator › Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes

Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Superseded by statute
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
504 U.S. 1
Decided
Confirmed treatments
10
Flagged citations read
279 of 279
Citing cases (total)
1,094
Treatment dates
1993–2025

Status

Superseded by statute
A reviewed court treats this case as superseded by later legislation. Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes is superseded by statute in part: all 279 flagged citations have been read, with the 10 distinct confirmed treatments listed below. Seven opinions held or confirmed that AEDPA replaced Keeney's cause-and-prejudice standard and freestanding miscarriage-of-justice exception while preserving its threshold diligence rule.
More on how this was screened

Pagan v. Keane, Clemmons v. Delo, and Seidel v. Merkle separately confined Keeney to mandatory hearings and preserved district-court discretion over nonmandatory evidentiary development. The other reviewed opinions applied Keeney, reported its treatment of Townsend v. Sain, or copied later history reports; duplicate copies of the same opinion, superseded opinions, separate writings, party filings, and a nonfinal magistrate recommendation do not create additional treatments.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

1,094 later cases cite Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes; 279 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Superseded by statute

  • The Seventh Circuit held that AEDPA replaced Keeney's state-default-centered framework with the federal rule in 28 U.S.C. § 2254(e)(2).

    Burris v. Parke · Seventh Circuit · filed

    The AEDPA differs from former law, see Keeney v. T-mayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. 1, 112 S.Ct. 1715, 118 L.Ed.2d 318 (1992), by not asking whether that omission is a default under state practice in the sense that it would prevent the prisoner from obtaining a hearing in state court. Section 2254(e)(2) is a rule of federal law, liberated from the independent-and-adequate-state-grounds doctrine on which Keeney rests.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The court held that AEDPA's amendment to § 2254(e)(2) superseded Keeney's standard governing mandatory evidentiary hearings when an applicant failed to develop material facts in state court.

    Lawrie v. Snyder · D. Del. · filed

    Thus, in effect, the 1996 amendment supersedes Keeney, which superseded a portion of Townsend, namely, the fifth circumstance in which an evidentiary hearing is mandatory.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The Supreme Court held that § 2254(e)(2) raised Keeney's cause-and-prejudice bar, eliminated its freestanding miscarriage-of-justice exception, and preserved its threshold diligence rule.

    Williams v. Taylor · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    As is evident from the similarity between the Court’s phrasing in Keeney and the opening clause of § 2254(e)(2), Congress intended to preserve at least one aspect of Keeney’s holding: prisoners who are at fault for the deficiency in the state-court record must satisfy a heightened standard to obtain an evidentiary hearing. To be sure, in requiring that prisoners who have not been diligent satisfy § 2254(e)(2)’s provisions rather than show cause and prejudice, and in eliminating a freestanding “miscarriage of justice” exception, Congress raised the bar Keeney imposed on prisoners who were not diligent in state-court proceedings.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The court held that § 2254(e)(2) replaced Keeney's cause-and-prejudice standard and eliminated Keeney's fundamental-miscarriage-of-justice exception.

    Williams v. Runnels · C.D. Cal. · filed

    This standard replaced the one articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. 1, 112 S.Ct. 1715, 118 L.Ed.2d 318 (1992). Keeney had held that a petitioner was entitled to an evidentiary hearing only, “if he can show cause for his failure to develop the facts in state-court proceedings and actual prejudice resulting from that failure.” 504 U.S. at 11, 112 S.Ct. 1715. ... It appears, however, that AEDPA overruled the “fundamental miscarriage of justice” exception, and that at this time, district courts cannot order evidentiary hearings unless the requirements of § 2254(e)(2) are met.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The court held that AEDPA's provisions codified at § 2254(e) superseded Keeney's evidentiary-hearing standard.

    Clark v. Mays · M.D. Tenn. · filed

    However, the standard articulated in Townsend was overruled in Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. 1, 5 (1992), which was itself superseded by the provisions of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act codified in Section 2254(e).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The Supreme Court confirmed that AEDPA replaced Keeney's cause-and-prejudice standard with § 2254(e)(2)'s more stringent requirements while retaining the diligence threshold.

    Shinn v. Martinez Ramirez · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    Four years later, Congress enacted AEDPA and replaced Keeney’s cause-and-prejudice standard for evidentiary development with the even “more stringent requirements” now codified at 28 U. S. C. §2254(e)(2). Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 420, 433 (2000) (Michael Williams). ... Even though AEDPA largely displaced Keeney, §2254(e)(2) retained “one aspect of Keeney’s holding.” Michael Williams, 529 U. S., at 433. Namely, §2254(e)(2) applies only when a prisoner “has failed to develop the factual basis of a claim.”
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The Seventh Circuit held that AEDPA abrogated Keeney's procedural-default analogy and eliminated the equitable exceptions Keeney had applied to failures to develop the state-court record.

    Woodson v. Mlodzik · Seventh Circuit · filed

    While the failure to develop material facts in state court was, at one time, treated similarly to procedural default, Keeney v. Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. 1, 7–8 (1992), Keeney was abrogated by AEDPA, and the equitable exceptions that excuse procedural default no longer apply where a petitioner has failed to develop the record in state court.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

Limited

  • The Second Circuit confined Keeney to circumstances in which an evidentiary hearing is mandatory and held that district courts retain discretion to conduct nonmandatory hearings.

    Pagan v. Keane · Second Circuit · filed

    This aspect of Townsend remains the law. As Justice O’Connor observed in dissent, “the district courts ... still possess the discretion, which has not been removed by today’s opinion, to hold hearings even where they are not mandatory.” Keeney, — U.S. at -, 112 S.Ct. at 1727; see Bellamy v. Cogdell, 974 F.2d 302, 309 (2d Cir.1992) (in banc).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The Eighth Circuit confined Keeney to mandatory evidentiary hearings and preserved a district court's discretion to conduct a hearing that is not required.

    Clemmons v. Delo · Eighth Circuit · filed

    Keeney, however, addresses only the circumstances under which an evidentiary hearing is required. “But Townsend also made clear that a District Court retained the power to hold a hearing even though one was not required.... This aspect of Townsend remains the law. As Justice O’Connor observed in dissent, ‘the district courts ... still possess the discretion, which has not been removed by today’s opinion [Keeney ], to hold hearings even where they are not mandatory.’ ” Pagan v. Keane, 984 F.2d 61, 64 (2d Cir.1993) (quoting Keeney, 504 U.S. at 23, 112 S.Ct. at 1727 (O’Connor, J., dissenting)) (second ellipsis in original).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →
  • The Ninth Circuit confined Keeney to entitlement to a mandatory evidentiary hearing and held that it did not affect a district court's broad discretion to consider relevant evidence.

    Seidel v. Merkle · Ninth Circuit · filed

    Contrary to what the State argues here, Tamayo-Reyes did not affect Townsend’s holding with respect to the district court’s broad authority to consider any evidence relevant to a federal habeas petitioner’s claim. See Tamayo-Reyes, 504 U.S. at 23, 112 S.Ct. 1715 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (“[T]he district courts ... still possess the discretion, which has not been removed by today’s opinion, to hold hearings even where they are not mandatory.”).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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