must give the state courts an opportunity to act on his claims before he presents those claims to a federal court in a habeas petition.” O’Sullivan v. Boerckel, 526 U.S. 838, 842, 119 S.Ct. 1728, 144 L.Ed.2d 1 (1999); see also 28 U.S.C. § 2254(b)(1)(A) (“An application for a writ of habeas corpus ... shall not be granted unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the courts of the State.”). State claims remain unexhausted if state proceedings remain pending at the time the petition is filed. Nonetheless, we have held that unjustified delay by a state court in adjudicating a direct criminal appeal may give rise to both a due process violation and relief from the exhaustion requirement itself. Harris v. Champion, 15 F.3d 1538, 1555, 1557 (10th Cir.1994) (<HOLDING>) (quotation omitted); see also 28 U.S.C. §
holding that ajlthough ocga  5648 c sets forth the conditions upon which the trial court may dismiss an appeal for delay it does not by its terms require the court to make a formal recitation of those conditions in its order and affirming a trial courts dismissal order which found that the delay was unreasonable but had no express finding that the delay was inexcusable punctuation omitted holding that inexcusable or inordinate delay by the state in processing claims for relief may make the state process ineffective to protect the petitioners rights and excuse exhaustion holding that the state courts rejection of the petitioners ineffective assistance of counsel claim was an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence before the state court holding that a federal court may excuse a state habeas petitioners procedural default if the petitioner can show cause for the failure to raise the claim and prejudice resulting from such failure holding that a party failed to present any evidence to rebut inference that delay was unreasonable and inexcusable