Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/397

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 236 (1992)

239

Per Curiam

the consolidation of the last two petitions is consistent with that objective. The delay of over a year before the third personal restraint petition was filed in Washington state court remains unexplained and was in fact compounded by the events that followed. The orders by the Ninth Circuit to vacate submission of the case until completion of the state collateral proceeding and then to hold the case in abeyance pending filing and resolution of the third federal habeas proceeding in the District Court raise the very concerns regarding delay that were part of the rationale for this Court’s decisions in Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982), and McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991). Adherence to those decisions, and their prompt enforcement by the district courts and courts of appeals, will obviate in many cases what the Court of Appeals here seems to perceive to be the necessity for accommodating multiple filings. As to the Death Penalty Task Force, reports of joint committees of the bench and bar should be of urgent concern to all persons with the responsibility for the administration of justice in the Ninth Circuit, but the ordinary course of legal proceedings and the constant duty of all judges to discharge their duties with diligence and precision cannot be suspended to await its recommendations. None of the reasons offered in the response dispels our concern that the State of Washington has sustained severe prejudice by the 21/2-year stay of execution. The stay has prevented Washington from exercising its sovereign power to enforce the criminal law, an interest we found of great weight in McCleskey when discussing the importance of finality in the context of federal habeas corpus proceedings. Id., at 491. Given the potential for prejudice to the State of Washington, the Ninth Circuit was under a duty to consider Campbell’s claim for relief without delay. Our case law suggests that expedited review of this second habeas petition would have been proper. Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880,