01-2926 In Re: John Campbell

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“Just as the filing of a notice of appeal is a prerequisite to a federal appeals court’s jurisdiction of an appeal, so the exhaustion of state remedies, including postconviction remedies, is a prerequisite to seeking federal habeas corpus. So one can imagine a case, though it is not this case, in which mandamus against a state court might be warranted in order to prevent that court from blocking the federal courts from exercising their habeas corpus jurisdiction. Even then, the proper remedy would not be to order the state court to act; it would be to deem the petitioner’s state remedies exhausted, White v. Ward, supra, thus clearing away the obstacle to our exercising jurisdiction over his case. Perhaps, though, in some cases not yet imagined, the federal court action could not proceed without some action by a state court and maybe in such a case the rule we have stated would yield to the urgencies of the moment – as we suggested by the term ‘as a general rule.’ But nothing of that sort is argued here.”

Petition for Writ of Mandamus denied.

Petition for a Writ of Mandamus, Posner, J.