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NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

KEENEY, SUPERINTENDENT, OREGON STATE
PENITENTIARY v. TAMAYO-REYES
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 90-1859.   Argued January 15, 1992-Decided May 4, 1992

In collateral state-court proceedings, respondent, a Cuban immigrant
 with little education and almost no knowledge of English, alleged,
 inter alia, that his plea of nolo contendere to first-degree manslaugh-
 ter had not been knowing and intelligent and therefore was invalid
 because his court-appointed translator had not translated accurately
 and completely for him the mens rea element of the crime in ques-
 tion.  The state court dismissed the petition after a hearing, the
 Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed, the State Supreme Court denied
 review, and the Federal District Court denied respondent habeas
 corpus relief.  However, the Court of Appeals held that he was
 entitled to a federal evidentiary hearing on the question whether the
 mens rea element of the crime was properly explained to him, since
 the record disclosed that the material facts concerning the translation
 were not adequately developed at the state-court hearing, see Town-
 send v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 313, and since postconviction counsel's
 negligent failure to develop those facts did not constitute a deliberate
 bypass of the orderly procedure of the state courts, see id., at 317;
 Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391, 438.
Held:A cause-and-prejudice standard, rather than Fay's deliberate
 bypass standard, is the correct standard for excusing a habeas
 petitioner's failure to develop a material fact in state-court proceed-
 ings.  Townsend's holding that the Fay standard is applicable in a
 case like this must be overruled in light of more recent decisions
 involving, like Fay, a state procedural default, in which this Court
 has rejected the deliberate bypass standard in favor of a standard of
 cause and prejudice.  See, e. g., Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72,
 87-88, and n. 12; Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. ___, ___.  It
 would be irrational to distinguish between failing to properly assert
 a federal claim in state court and failing in state court to properly
 develop such a claim, and to apply to the latter a remnant of a
 decision that is no longer upheld with regard to the former.  More-
 over, the concerns of finality, comity, judicial economy, and channel-
 ing the resolution of claims into the most appropriate forum that
 motivated the rejection of the Fay standard in the state procedural
 default cases are equally applicable to this case.  Finally, applying
 the cause-and-prejudice standard here also advances uniformity in
 habeas corpus law.  Thus, respondent is entitled to a federal eviden-
 tiary hearing if he can show cause for his failure to develop the facts
 in the state-court proceedings and actual prejudice resulting from
 that failure, or if he can show that a fundamental miscarriage of
 justice would result from failure to hold such a hearing.  See, e. g.,
 McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. ___, ___.  Pp.3-10.
926 F.2d 1492, reversed and remanded.

 White, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist,
C. J., and Scalia, Souter, and Thomas, JJ., joined.  O'Connor, J.,
filed a dissenting opinion, in which Blackmun, Stevens, and Kennedy,
JJ., joined.  Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion.