In the case of Charles Russell Rhines v. Douglas Weber, Warden (2004), Rhines was convicted for murder and sentenced to death in South Dakota. He filed a federal habeas corpus petition challenging his conviction and sentence on several grounds, including ineffective assistance of counsel. The District Court found that some claims were unexhausted because they had not been presented to the state courts first as required by law. However, instead of dismissing these claims outright or staying proceedings entirely while Rhines returned to state court, the District Court stayed his mixed petition indefinitely and retained jurisdiction over it pending exhaustion of state remedies. The U.S Supreme Court held that this approach was an abuse of discretion under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) which aims at reducing delays in executing valid death sentences. The stay-and-abeyance should only be available when there is good cause for petitioner's failure to exhaust his claims first in state court along with other conditions being met such as if unexhausted claims are potentially meritorious & absence of intentionally dilatory litigation tactics etc., none applicable here.

In the dissenting opinion for Charles Russell Rhines v. Douglas Weber, Warden, Justice O'Connor disagreed with the majority's decision to deny Rhines' habeas corpus petition due to a procedural default. She argued that there was no clear precedent or rule stating that federal courts must dismiss untimely filed petitions without considering their merits. Furthermore, she believed it was unfair and against principles of justice to penalize a defendant for his attorney’s errors in failing to meet filing deadlines. The dissent also pointed out that dismissing such cases could potentially result in grave miscarriages of justice if defendants were unable to present compelling evidence of their innocence simply because they missed a deadline.