Hueso v. Barnhart

Decision Date09 January 2020
Docket NumberNo. 18-6299,18-6299
Citation948 F.3d 324
Parties Ramon HUESO, Petitioner-Appellant, v. J.A. BARNHART, Warden, Respondent-Appellee.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

MURPHY, Circuit Judge.

Since the founding, Congress has adjusted and readjusted the important balance between an individual’s interest in correcting a wrongful conviction and society’s interest in stopping perpetual attacks on final criminal judgments. In the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Congress adjusted this balance again, this time by placing greater weight on the finality of completed cases. This law generally gives federal prisoners just one chance to overturn a final criminal judgment—by alleging any and all errors in a single motion to vacate under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The law permits a second § 2255 motion only if prisoners show new evidence of their innocence or a new rule of constitutional law from the Supreme Court. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(1)(2). Since 1996, therefore, prisoners have not been able to file a second § 2255 motion based on a new rule of statutory law from the Supreme Court.

Unable to invoke new statutory decisions in a second § 2255 motion, prisoners have turned to a different vehicle: a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2241. But they have faced a different obstacle: § 2255 has long barred federal prisoners from seeking habeas relief unless they show that § 2255 ’s remedy is "inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [their] detention." Id. § 2255(e). Courts disagree over when (if ever) § 2255(h) ’s limits on second § 2255 motions—when combined with a new statutory decision issued after the denial of a first motion—render § 2255 "inadequate or ineffective" so as to permit a second round of litigation under § 2241. Compare McCarthan v. Dir. of Goodwill Industries-Suncoast, Inc. , 851 F.3d 1076 (11th Cir. 2017) (en banc), with Brown v. Caraway , 719 F.3d 583 (7th Cir. 2013). Our court has joined those that have made the broadest inroads into the 1996 limits in § 2255(h). Unlike some courts, for example, we allow new habeas petitions even if a later Supreme Court decision affects only a prisoner’s sentence, not just the prisoner’s conviction. Hill v. Masters , 836 F.3d 591 (6th Cir. 2016).

Ramon Hueso asks us to go further still. He argues that prisoners barred from filing a second § 2255 motion may seek habeas relief under § 2241 based on new decisions from the circuit courts , not just the Supreme Court . Although the Fourth Circuit has blessed an identical request, United States v. Wheeler , 886 F.3d 415, 428–29 (4th Cir. 2018), we must respectfully decline. Among our reasons: Congress allowed prisoners to file a second § 2255 motion only if the Supreme Court adopts a new rule of constitutional law. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2). We would write this limit out of the statute if we held that new rules from the circuit courts (whether of statutory or constitutional law) could render § 2255 "inadequate or ineffective" and trigger the right to a second round of litigation under § 2241. We thus affirm the denial of Hueso’s habeas petition.

I.

The Supreme Court long ago recognized that "the power to award the writ [of habeas corpus] by any of the courts of the United States, must be given by written law," not common law. Ex parte Bollman , 8 U.S. (4 Cranch) 75, 94, 2 L.Ed. 554 (1807). This case concerns the relationship between two of those written laws: 28 U.S.C. §§ 2241 and 2255. The history of these laws—both before and after Congress’s 1996 changes—puts this case’s complicated statutory question in its proper context.

A.

Section 2241, which allows courts to grant "[w]rits of habeas corpus," dates to the Judiciary Act of 1789. 28 U.S.C. § 2241(a) ; McCleskey v. Zant , 499 U.S. 467, 477–78, 111 S.Ct. 1454, 113 L.Ed.2d 517 (1991). The Supreme Court initially interpreted this statute, like the common-law writ, not to apply to prisoners who had been convicted by a court of competent jurisdiction. Ex parte Watkins , 28 U.S. (3 Pet.) 193, 202–03, 7 L.Ed. 650 (1830). But the Court gradually expanded its interpretation of the habeas statute to permit more and more "collateral" attacks on final criminal judgments. See McCleskey , 499 U.S. at 478–79, 111 S.Ct. 1454.

This expansion caused two practical problems. For one, courts could issue writs only "within their respective jurisdictions," so prisoners filed habeas petitions in the court with jurisdiction over the prison detaining them. See Rumsfeld v. Padilla , 542 U.S. 426, 446–47, 124 S.Ct. 2711, 159 L.Ed.2d 513 (2004). This rule channeled the growing number of petitions into the few courts with jurisdiction over prisons, compelling those courts to review cases from faraway locations. United States v. Hayman , 342 U.S. 205, 213–14, 214 n.18, 72 S.Ct. 263, 96 L.Ed. 232 (1952). For another, "res judicata" did not apply to common-law petitions. McCleskey , 499 U.S. at 479, 111 S.Ct. 1454. Courts thus read the habeas statute as allowing prisoners to file multiple requests. Id. This reading "stimulated the filing of unmeritorious successive petitions," which were submitted "with the hope, perhaps, of reaching the ear of a different judge[.]" Louis E. Goodman, Use and Abuse of the Writ of Habeas Corpus , 7 F.R.D. 313, 315 (1948).

In 1948, Congress passed legislation with remedies tailored to each of these two problems. Pub. L. No. 80-773, 62 Stat. 869, 964–68 (1948).

First Remedy : The 1948 law eliminated the need for courts to review distant judgments by creating a new cause of action in 28 U.S.C. § 2255. 62 Stat. at 967–68. Section 2255 afforded prisoners the same rights granted by the habeas statute (now moved to § 2241 ), but in a "more convenient forum": the sentencing court, not the court of confinement. Hayman , 342 U.S. at 219, 72 S.Ct. 263. To ensure that prisoners would use this new remedy, § 2255 directed courts not to entertain a habeas petition under § 2241 if a prisoner had not filed (or had unsuccessfully filed) a § 2255 motion. 62 Stat. at 968; see, e.g. , Broadus-Bey v. Diamond , 264 F.2d 242, 242–43 (6th Cir. 1959) (per curiam).

That said, § 2255 ’s ban on habeas filings came with an exception that we have come to call its "saving" or "savings" clause (now in § 2255(e) ). This clause clarified that prisoners could not file habeas petitions under § 2241 "unless it also appears that the remedy by motion [under § 2255 ] is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [their] detention." 62 Stat. at 968. Before 1996, courts read this clause as "allow[ing] resort to § 2241 sparingly." Prost v. Anderson , 636 F.3d 578, 588 (10th Cir. 2011) ; cf. Cohen v. United States , 593 F.2d 766, 770–71, 771 n.12 (6th Cir. 1979). For example, a prisoner’s "lack of success" on the merits in a § 2255 proceeding did not show § 2255 ’s inadequacy. E.g. , Litterio v. Parker , 369 F.2d 395, 396 (3d Cir. 1966) (per curiam).

Second Remedy : The 1948 law also limited multiple collateral filings. A (now-superseded) sentence in § 2255 said that a "sentencing court shall not be required to entertain a second or successive [ § 2255 ] motion for similar relief on behalf of the same prisoner." 62 Stat. at 967. And a new § 2244 adopted similar language for habeas petitions. Id. at 965–66. The Supreme Court read these two provisions to codify the limits on multiple filings that courts had been developing in common-law fashion before 1948. Sanders v. United States , 373 U.S. 1, 12–14, 83 S.Ct. 1068, 10 L.Ed.2d 148 (1963). By the 1990s, these judicially developed limits—which the Court described as a "qualified application of the doctrine of res judicata"—allowed courts to dismiss successive petitions (those raising the same issues decided in a prior petition) or abusive petitions (those raising new issues that could have been asserted in a prior petition). Schlup v. Delo , 513 U.S. 298, 318–19, 318 n.34, 115 S.Ct. 851, 130 L.Ed.2d 808 (1995).

Because the 1948 statute allowed courts to exercise discretion when enforcing its limits on multiple filings, courts developed various exceptions to these limits. By the 1990s, prisoners could file a second collateral challenge raising a new claim if they showed "cause" for the delay in asserting the claim and "prejudice" from the alleged error. See McCleskey , 499 U.S. at 493–94, 111 S.Ct. 1454 ; United States v. Flores , 981 F.2d 231, 234–35, 234 n.4 (5th Cir. 1993). They also could file a second collateral challenge if they made "a proper showing of actual innocence." See Herrera v. Collins , 506 U.S. 390, 404–05, 113 S.Ct. 853, 122 L.Ed.2d 203 (1993). Changes in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of a criminal statute implicated both of these judicial exceptions. See United States v. Richards , 5 F.3d 1369, 1370–72 (10th Cir. 1993). A new interpretation that was "novel" could prove cause. Reed v. Ross , 468 U.S. 1, 15, 104 S.Ct. 2901, 82 L.Ed.2d 1 (1984). And a new interpretation that limited a statute’s scope could show that a prisoner was innocent of the offense under the statute’s narrowed reach. Bousley v. United States , 523 U.S. 614, 623–24, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998).

B.

In 1996, Congress replaced these judicially developed limits on multiple § 2255 motions with a categorical limit (now in § 2255(h) ) that generally prohibits second § 2255 motions. See Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214, 1220. Yet Congress adopted two statutory exceptions to this new statutory limit that codified narrower versions of the prior judicially developed exceptions. A new change-in-law exception allows a second motion based only on a "new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable." 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h)(2). And a new actual-innocence exception allows a second motion based only on "newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the...

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