Page:Jones v. Hendrix.pdf/61

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Cite as: 599 U. S. ____ (2023)

29

Jackson, J., dissenting

“finality”—and seems to draw a line between AEDPA’s statute of limitations, which does get clear-statement treatment, and its provisions governing successive petitions. Ante, at 23–24. This is nonsense. Both AEDPA provisions use similar language. §2255(f) (“A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to a motion under this section”); §2255(h) (“A second or successive motion must … contain …”). And both procedural limitations relate to Congress’s interest in finality. Ante, at 24; Wood v. Milyard, 566 U. S. 463, 472 (2012) (noting that AEDPA’s statute of limitations “lends finality to … court judgments within a reasonable time” (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted)).^[1]

Next, the majority conspicuously downplays the stakes in this case. Not once does its opinion make direct mention of the fact that the claim the majority says §2255(h) silently precludes is one that implicates core values because it involves legal innocence. Instead, the majority repeatedly describes Jones’s bid for access to the postconviction review process as bringing a mere “statutory” claim. Ante, at 2, 12, 21, 23.^[2] But statutory claims that suggest a person’s innocence are different in kind from more run-of-the-mill statutory claims, such as a technical, nonprejudicial violation of a criminal procedure rule. See United States v. Addonizio,

↑ This Court has also treated these two provisions as similarly susceptible to equitable exceptions; for instance, the “miscarriage of justice” principle that permits bypassing procedural barriers applies to both. McQuiggin, 569 U. S., at 386, 392–393; Schlup, 513 U. S., at 320.
↑ The euphemistic manner in which the Court’s opinion tiptoes around what Jones is actually arguing is noteworthy. The majority says that, by operation of §2255(h), prisoners in Jones’s position cannot take advantage of “a more favorable interpretation of statutory law,” ante, at 1, which it also obliquely characterizes as “an intervening change in statutory interpretation,” ante, at 3, or “a newly adopted narrowing interpretation of a criminal statute,” ante, at 9. In fact, the word “innocence” only appears in the Court’s opinion when recounting the Government’s arguments. Ante, at 21, 23. If the majority has spared a thought for the appropriate standard when a petitioner is claiming legal innocence, I could not find it in the Court’s opinion.

[1] This Court has also treated these two provisions as similarly susceptible to equitable exceptions; for instance, the “miscarriage of justice” principle that permits bypassing procedural barriers applies to both. McQuiggin, 569 U. S., at 386, 392–393; Schlup, 513 U. S., at 320.

[2] The euphemistic manner in which the Court’s opinion tiptoes around what Jones is actually arguing is noteworthy. The majority says that, by operation of §2255(h), prisoners in Jones’s position cannot take advantage of “a more favorable interpretation of statutory law,” ante, at 1, which it also obliquely characterizes as “an intervening change in statutory interpretation,” ante, at 3, or “a newly adopted narrowing interpretation of a criminal statute,” ante, at 9. In fact, the word “innocence” only appears in the Court’s opinion when recounting the Government’s arguments. Ante, at 21, 23. If the majority has spared a thought for the appropriate standard when a petitioner is claiming legal innocence, I could not find it in the Court’s opinion.

[1]

[2]