Ratcliff v. Estelle

RONEY, Circuit Judge:

If a state court finds that a procedural default forecloses a convicted defendant’s right to challenge collaterally the composition of the grand jury which indicted him, but then proceeds to consider and deny the challenge on the merits, must a federal court deny habeas corpus relief under the contemporaneous objection rule, without *476reaching the merits of the constitutional attack? We agree with the district court that it must.

On appeal from a dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus relief, petitioner Ratcliff contends that blacks were systematically excluded from the…