## Facts

- Daniel Ross was convicted of first-degree murder in North Carolina state court in 1969 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
- At trial, Ross asserted lack of malice and self-defense.
- Under then-settled North Carolina law, the jury was instructed that Ross bore the burden of proving lack of malice and self-defense.
- Ross appealed but did not challenge the constitutionality of the burden-shifting instructions.
- After his conviction, the Supreme Court held that requiring a defendant to prove lack of malice violates due process, and later held that rule applied retroactively.
- Ross pursued state post-conviction relief without success and then filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging the burden-shifting instructions.
- The federal district court denied relief on the ground that Ross had procedurally defaulted by failing to raise the claim on direct appeal under state rules.
- After intervening Supreme Court decisions requiring a showing of “cause and actual prejudice” to overcome procedural default, the Fourth Circuit held Ross established “cause” because the claim’s legal basis was not reasonably available at the time of his appeal; the State conceded “actual prejudice.”

## Issues

1. Whether a state prisoner establishes “cause” to excuse a state procedural default when the constitutional claim later recognized by the Supreme Court was so novel at the time of default that its legal basis was not reasonably available to counsel.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment granting Ross federal habeas relief.
- The Court held that Ross established “cause” for failing to raise the burden-shifting due process claim on direct appeal.
- The Court accepted that “actual prejudice” was satisfied because the State conceded it.
- The Court concluded the claim’s novelty made its legal basis not reasonably available to competent counsel at the time of Ross’s direct appeal, distinguishing novelty from mere futility.

## Legal Principles

- Federal habeas review of a claim barred by an independent and adequate state procedural rule requires the petitioner to show both “cause” for the default and “actual prejudice.”
- “Cause” exists when a constitutional claim is so novel that its legal basis was not reasonably available to counsel at the time of the procedural default.
- Counsel’s failure to anticipate an unforeseeable constitutional development can satisfy “cause,” but the fact that a claim would likely have been rejected (futility) generally does not.
- When novelty supplies cause and the petitioner shows (or the State concedes) actual prejudice from the constitutional error, the procedural default does not bar federal habeas relief.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the novelty of a later-recognized constitutional rule can constitute “cause” excusing a state procedural default in federal habeas proceedings when the claim’s legal basis was not reasonably available to counsel at the time of the default, and affirmed relief where prejudice was conceded.


Reed v. Ross, 468 U.S. 1 (1984)