Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-08-05221/USCOURTS-caDC-08-05221-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 530
Nature of Suit: Prisoner Petitions - Habeas Corpus
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 14, 2009 Decided November 13, 2009 

No. 08-5221 

CRAIG ALLAN WILLIAMS, 

APPELLANT

v. 

R. MARTINEZ, WARDEN AND KENNETH L. WAINSTEIN, UNITED 

STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:08-cv-00971-ESH) 

William Hoffman, appointed by the court, argued the cause 

as amicus curiae in support of appellant. With him on the briefs 

was David L. Cousineau. 

Craig A. Williams, pro se, filed briefs for appellant. 

Michael T. Ambrosino, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the 

cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Roy W. McLeese 

III, Assistant U.S. Attorney. R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant U.S. 

Attorney, entered an appearance. 

USCA Case #08-5221 Document #1215547 Filed: 11/13/2009 Page 1 of 20
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Before: ROGERS, TATEL and BROWN, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. 

Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit Judge 

BROWN. 

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Section 23-110 of the D.C. Code 

establishes a procedure for collateral review of convictions in 

the D.C. Superior Court and creates exclusive jurisdiction in that 

court “unless” the remedy provided by that section is 

“inadequate or ineffective.” In this case, we must decide 

whether section 23-110 bars a prisoner convicted in Superior 

Court from bringing a federal habeas corpus petition alleging 

ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. Because the D.C. 

Court of Appeals has held that challenges to the effectiveness of 

appellate counsel may not be brought pursuant to section 23-

110, but must instead be raised through a motion to recall the 

mandate in that court, we hold that section 23-110 does not 

deprive federal courts of jurisdiction over habeas petitions 

alleging ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. 

I. 

Although the background of this case is complicated, 

involving as it does several proceedings spanning more than 

fifteen years, see Williams v. United States, 878 A.2d 477 (D.C. 

2005) (en banc); Williams v. United States, 783 A.2d 598 (D.C. 

2001), understanding the issue before us requires knowing only 

the following. 

In 1990, a D.C. Superior Court jury convicted appellant 

Craig Allan Williams of first-degree murder. Represented by 

new counsel, Williams then appealed. During the pendency of 

that appeal, Williams filed a motion for post-conviction relief 

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pursuant to D.C. Code § 23-110, which provides that a “prisoner 

in custody under sentence of the Superior Court claiming the 

right to be released upon the ground that [] the sentence was 

imposed in violation of the Constitution . . . may move the court 

to vacate, set aside, or correct the sentence.” D.C. Code § 23-

110(a). 

Consistent with its usual practice, the D.C. Court of 

Appeals stayed Williams’s direct appeal pending the Superior 

Court’s resolution of his section 23-110 motion. See Shepard v. 

United States, 533 A.2d 1278, 1280 (D.C. 1987). Thereafter, 

the Superior Court denied Williams’s section 23-110 motion, 

and the D.C. Court of Appeals consolidated his appeal of that 

denial with his direct appeal. In 1995, the D.C. Court of 

Appeals affirmed Williams’s conviction. 

Williams then filed a motion in the D.C. Court of Appeals 

to recall the mandate affirming his conviction—the procedure 

required in the District of Columbia to litigate the issue of 

ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. See Watson v. 

United States, 536 A.2d 1056, 1060 (D.C. 1987) (en banc). In 

that motion, Williams complained that counsel on both his direct 

appeal and his section 23-110 motion had rendered ineffective 

assistance. The D.C. Court of Appeals summarily denied the 

motion to recall the mandate. 

Making the same ineffective assistance of appellate counsel 

claim, Williams then sought habeas relief in federal court. The 

district court dismissed Williams’s habeas petition for lack of 

jurisdiction on the ground that section 23-110 provides the 

exclusive remedy for collateral challenges to sentences imposed 

by the Superior Court. Williams v. Martinez, 559 F. Supp. 2d 

56, 57–58 (D.D.C. 2008). 

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Williams appealed, and we referred his case to the district 

court to determine in the first instance whether to issue a 

certificate of appealability (COA). See 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1) 

(requiring a COA to appeal a final order in a habeas 

proceeding); United States v. Mitchell, 216 F.3d 1126, 1130 

(D.C. Cir. 2000) (holding that petitioners should seek a COA 

from the district court before requesting one from the appeals 

court). The district court declined to issue a COA, explaining 

that for the reasons given in its opinion dismissing Williams’s 

claim for lack of jurisdiction, Williams had failed to make “a 

substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right,” as 

required for a COA. 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(2). Williams then 

filed a request for a COA in this court, and we appointed amicus 

curiae to present arguments on his behalf. 

Because the district court denied Williams’s petition 

without reaching the merits of his constitutional claim, we 

review his request for a COA in two steps. We ask first whether 

Williams has shown that “jurists of reason would find it 

debatable whether the district court was correct” in dismissing 

his petition for lack of jurisdiction, and second whether “jurists 

of reason would find it debatable whether [his] petition states a 

valid claim of the denial of a constitutional right.” Slack v. 

McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000). We take each step in turn. 

 

II. 

The answer to the first question—whether the district court 

correctly dismissed Williams’s claim for lack of jurisdiction—

turns on the reach of section 23-110. Section 23-110(a) 

authorizes a “prisoner in custody under sentence of the Superior 

Court” to “move the court to vacate, set aside, or correct the 

sentence.” D.C. Code § 23-110(a). Section 23-110(g) provides: 

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An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of 

a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by 

motion pursuant to this section shall not be entertained 

by the Superior Court or by any Federal or State court 

if it appears that the applicant has failed to make a 

motion for relief under this section or that the Superior 

Court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that 

the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to 

test the legality of his detention. 

D.C. Code § 23-110(g). 

Williams contends that section 23-110(g) presents no bar to 

his ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claim. 

Specifically, he argues that because the D.C. Court of Appeals 

prohibits prisoners from bringing challenges to the effectiveness 

of appellate counsel under section 23-110—they may be raised 

only through a motion to recall the mandate—his remedy under 

section 23-110 is “inadequate or ineffective.” According to the 

government, Williams, by focusing solely on the adequacy of 

his remedies under section 23-110, “addresses the wrong 

question.” Appellees’ Br. 25. As the government sees it, the 

proper inquiry is not whether section 23-110 provides an 

adequate remedy to test the legality of Williams’s detention, but 

rather whether the “local remedy” taken as a whole does. Id. 

Therefore, the government argues, because the D.C. Court of 

Appeals provides an adequate local remedy to challenge the 

effectiveness of appellate counsel, namely the opportunity to file 

a motion asking the court to recall its mandate, section 23-110 

bars Williams’s habeas petition. 

We agree with Williams. Section 23-110(g)’s plain 

language makes clear that it only divests federal courts of 

jurisdiction to hear habeas petitions by prisoners who could 

have raised viable claims pursuant to section 23-110(a). Recall 

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that section 23-110(g) provides that a prisoner authorized to 

apply for relief under section 23-110(a) may not bring a habeas 

petition in federal court “unless it also appears that the remedy 

by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his 

detention.” D.C. Code § 23-110(g). “[R]emedy by motion” 

plainly refers to motions filed pursuant to section 23-110(a). 

Although the D.C. Court of Appeals allows prisoners to 

challenge the effectiveness of appellate counsel through a 

motion to recall the mandate, such a motion—filed directly in 

the D.C. Court of Appeals—is obviously not a “remedy by 

[section 23-110] motion,” which is filed in the D.C. Superior 

Court. D.C. Code § 23-110(g). Indeed, the D.C. Court of 

Appeals itself has emphasized that a motion to recall the 

mandate is an “independent” action separate and apart from a 

section 23-110 motion. Wu v. United States, 798 A.2d 1083, 

1091 (D.C. 2002). Thus, because the Superior Court lacks 

authority to entertain a section 23-110 motion challenging the 

effectiveness of appellate counsel, that section is, by definition, 

inadequate to test the legality of Williams’s detention. 

Accordingly, section 23-110 does not bar Williams’s habeas 

petition. 

Our decision in Streater v. Jackson, 691 F.2d 1026 (D.C. 

Cir. 1982), supports this view. There, the D.C. Court of 

Appeals dismissed Streater’s section 23-110 motion alleging 

ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. Streater then 

petitioned for habeas relief in the district court, which dismissed 

his petition for failing to exhaust his local remedies. On appeal, 

we recognized that Streater found himself in a bind: on the one 

hand, section 23-110 was unavailable to him because the 

Superior Court lacks authority to review appellate proceedings; 

on the other hand, the D.C. Court of Appeals had at that time 

failed to clarify what avenue of local relief remained open to 

him. Accordingly, we instructed the district court to hold 

Streater’s habeas petition in abeyance pending his application to 

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the D.C. Court of Appeals to recall its mandate—the very 

procedure subsequently adopted by the D.C. Court of Appeals 

as the appropriate vehicle for mounting a challenge to the 

effectiveness of appellate counsel. Id. at 1028; see Watson, 536 

A.2d at 1060–61 (requiring that ineffective assistance of 

appellate counsel claims be litigated through a motion to recall 

the mandate). Of significance to the issue before us, we 

clarified that after “a cogent ruling from the D.C. Court of 

Appeals concerning local relief, if any, for Streater, the District 

Court will be in a position to rule intelligently on his federal 

petition for habeas corpus.” Streater, 691 F.2d at 1028. In 

other words, Streater anticipated precisely the situation we 

confront here—a federal habeas petition asserting ineffective 

assistance of appellate counsel after the prisoner moved to recall 

the mandate in the D.C. Court of Appeals—and seemed to have 

assumed that the district court would have jurisdiction to 

entertain that petition. 

Blair-Bey v. Quick, 151 F.3d 1036 (D.C. Cir. 1998), further 

reinforces this conclusion. In that case, a prisoner convicted of 

violating the District of Columbia Code filed a federal habeas 

petition challenging the procedures under which he was denied 

parole by the D.C. Parole Board. We concluded that section 23-

110 presented no bar to the habeas proceeding, explaining that 

the claim could not have been brought under section 23-110 

because it did not “challenge [Blair-Bey’s] conviction or 

sentence” as provided in section 23-110, and “section 23-110(g) 

only bars us from hearing those claims that could have been 

raised through section 23-110.” Id. at 1043; see also Neal v. 

Director, 684 F.2d 17, 19 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (finding that section 

23-110(g) does not preclude federal court jurisdiction over a 

prisoner’s habeas challenge to his transfer between 

penitentiaries because challenges to prison transfer procedures 

fall outside the scope of section 23-110). Blair-Bey therefore 

confirms that section 23-110(g) divests federal courts of 

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jurisdiction only over habeas petitions by prisoners who, unlike 

Williams, have an effective section 23-110 remedy available to 

them. 

Blair-Bey also speaks to the question, arguably left open in 

Streater, whether the availability of an adequate local remedy 

outside section 23-110 is sufficient to bar prisoners sentenced in 

the District of Columbia from seeking federal habeas relief. In 

Blair-Bey, as in this case, the prisoner had another means to 

seek his release: section 16-1901 of the D.C. Code, which 

provides a general habeas corpus remedy for prisoners confined 

in the District. D.C. Code § 16-1901. Despite the availability of 

that alternative procedure, however, we allowed Blair-Bey’s 

federal habeas petition to go forward. Blair-Bey, 151 F.3d at 

1047. 

The section 16-1901 procedure at issue in Blair-Bey is 

analogous to the mandate-recall procedure at issue here in that 

both provide prisoners with a means to secure their release, and 

both provide relief comparable to that otherwise available for 

claims that fall within section 23-110’s scope. See Norris v. 

United States, 927 A.2d 1034, 1038 (D.C. 2007) (explaining that 

section 16-1901 and section 23-110 are both “designed to permit 

challenges to unlawful custody”). Indeed, section 16-1901 is 

perhaps more akin to section 23-110 because, like a section 23-

110 motion, a habeas petition under section 16-1901 is filed 

directly with the Superior Court. See D.C. Code § 16-1901(c). 

But just as the availability of section 16-1901 did not bar BlairBey’s federal habeas petition, the availability of the mandaterecall procedure does not divest the federal district court of 

jurisdiction over Williams’s petition. 

Nothing in Garris v. Lindsay, 794 F.2d 722 (D.C. Cir. 

1986), on which the government relies, requires a different 

result. In that case, Garris, a D.C. prisoner, argued in his direct 

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appeal that he had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to 

represent himself in his Superior Court trial. The D.C. Court of 

Appeals rejected that claim, and D.C. law barred him from 

relitigating the issue collaterally under section 23-110. Id. at 

727. Garris then filed a federal habeas petition in which he 

argued that because he was unable to take advantage of section 

23-110, the district court had authority to entertain his petition. 

Noting that “[i]t is the inefficacy of the remedy, not a personal 

inability to utilize it, that is determinative,” we concluded that 

the district court lacked habeas jurisdiction. Id. at 727. Here, it 

is indeed the “inefficacy of the remedy” that presents the 

problem. Section 23-110 was unavailable to Williams because 

his constitutional claim—unlike Garris’s—falls outside that 

statute’s scope. 

In concluding that Williams may proceed with his habeas 

petition, we are mindful that when Congress enacted section 23-

110 as part of the District of Columbia Court Reform and 

Criminal Procedure Act of 1970, Pub. L. No. 91-358, § 210, 84 

Stat. 608, it sought to vest the Superior Court with exclusive 

jurisdiction over most collateral challenges by prisoners 

sentenced in that court. See Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 

378 (1977); Blair-Bey, 151 F.3d at 1045–46; see also Swain, 

430 U.S. at 381–82 (explaining that “[s]ince the scope of the 

remedy provided by § 23-110 is the same as that provided by § 

2255, it is also commensurate with habeas corpus in all respects 

save” administration by Article III judges). That said, Congress 

also included the “inadequate or ineffective” exception, 

indicating that it contemplated circumstances under which 

prisoners sentenced in Superior Court could petition for habeas 

relief in federal court. As noted above, supra at 7–8, we have 

already recognized some exceptions under section 23-110(g), 

and today we recognize another. The government warns that 

allowing habeas petitions like Williams’s to proceed will “open 

the floodgates to frivolous federal habeas claims.” Appellees’ 

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Br. 35. Although the government gives us no basis for thinking 

that will happen, Congress can always close the “floodgates” if 

the feared deluge comes to pass. 

The concurring opinion correctly notes that D.C. prisoners 

who challenge the effectiveness of appellate counsel through a 

motion to recall the mandate in the D.C. Court of Appeals will 

get a second bite at the apple in federal court. But that is a 

consequence of section 23-110(g), which bars federal habeas 

claims only when the section 23-110 motion is adequate or 

effective. As explained above, a motion to recall the mandate 

does not qualify as a motion pursuant to section 23-110. 

Moreover, we allowed Blair-Bey to file a federal habeas petition 

challenging his parole proceedings even though the D.C. Court 

of Appeals had affirmed the Superior Court’s denial of his D.C. 

habeas petition making precisely the same claim. Blair-Bey, 

151 F.3d at 1038, 1047. We also recognize that if the D.C. 

Court of Appeals wishes to avoid federal habeas review of 

ineffective assistance of appellate counsel claims, it would have 

to abandon its mandate-recall procedure and permit the Superior 

Court to entertain such challenges under section 23-110—just as 

we require such claims to be raised directly in the district court 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. See United States v. Henry, 472 

F.3d 910, 915 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (requiring federal prisoners to 

raise ineffective assistance of appellant counsel claims pursuant 

to section 2255); concurring op. at 5–6. But again, that is a 

consequence of how Congress wrote section 23-110 and how 

the District of Columbia’s highest court has interpreted that 

provision of the D.C. Code. Although Congress could amend 

the statute, we cannot, and on questions of District of Columbia 

law this court defers to the D.C. Court of Appeals. See BlairBey, 151 F.3d at 1050. 

Given the foregoing, Williams has more than satisfied the 

first step of his COA burden. He has shown not just that the 

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district court’s habeas jurisdiction is debatable, see Slack, 529 

U.S. at 484, but that under section 23-110 the district court in 

fact has jurisdiction to entertain his habeas petition. We must 

therefore decide whether Williams has presented a reasonably 

debatable claim of the denial of a constitutional right, an issue to 

which we now turn. 

III. 

Although criminal defendants enjoy a due process right to 

the effective assistance of counsel during their first appeal as of 

right, Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 396 (1985), the Supreme 

Court has made clear that defendants lack a constitutional 

entitlement to effective assistance of counsel in state collateral 

proceedings, Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 752 (1991). 

In this case, the government contends that Williams’s 

ineffective assistance of counsel claims relate solely to his 

section 23-110 motion, a collateral procedure to which no right 

of counsel attaches. Accordingly, the government argues, 

Williams has failed to allege the denial of a constitutional right 

and so has no right to a COA. We disagree. 

The government is certainly correct that Williams’s habeas 

petition challenges the effectiveness of counsel in the section 

23-110 proceedings. But the petition does not stop there. It 

goes on to challenge the effectiveness of counsel in the direct 

appeal as well. “Ground two” of the petition expressly alleges 

the “[d]enial of due process and effective assistance of counsel 

on first appeal of criminal conviction.” Pet. for Writ of Habeas 

Corpus at 19.5, Williams v. Martinez, 559 F. Supp. 2d 56 

(D.D.C. 2008) (No. 08-0971). Contrary to the government’s 

claim, then, Williams has in fact asserted the denial of a 

constitutional right—effective assistance of counsel in his direct 

appeal. 

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Having established that Williams has asserted a 

constitutionally cognizable right in his habeas petition, we must 

determine whether he has shown a reasonably debatable 

infringement of that right. See Slack, 529 U.S. at 484. “The 

COA determination under § 2253(c) requires an overview of the 

claims in the habeas petition and a general assessment of their 

merits.” Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 336 (2003). 

Because the district court found it unnecessary to reach the 

merits of Williams’s habeas petition, however, we lack the 

benefit of that court’s analysis. Moreover, the parties’ briefs 

give little attention to the merits of Williams’s claim, and to the 

extent that they do, they disagree on the precise nature of that 

claim. Given all this, we are unprepared to decide whether 

Williams has met his burden of stating “a valid claim of the 

denial of a constitutional right.” Slack, 529 U.S. at 484; see id.

at 485, 489 (declining to address the merits of the COA analysis 

where the parties had not briefed the issue). Accordingly, we 

remand the case to the district court to consider the merits 

component of the COA question, an evaluation that the court 

should undertake in light of the standard set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 

2254. See Miller-El, 537 U.S. at 349–50 (Scalia, J., concurring) 

(explaining that a judge should deny a COA if all reasonable 

jurists would conclude that the habeas statute bars relief); cf. 

Madley v. U.S. Parole Comm’n, 278 F.3d 1306, 1308–09 (D.C. 

Cir. 2002) (holding that District of Columbia courts are deemed 

to be state courts for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 2253); Coady v. 

Vaughn, 251 F.3d 480, 484–85 (3d Cir. 2001) (requiring a state 

prisoner to challenge his custody under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 rather 

than § 2241). 

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the dismissal of 

Williams’s habeas petition and remand to the district court for 

further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

So ordered. 

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BROWN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment: I 

agree it was error for the district court to dismiss Williams’s 

habeas petition for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to D.C. Code 

§ 23-110(g). However, the court interprets section 23-110 so 

literally it confers routine jurisdiction in federal court for all 

claims of ineffective assistance of appellate counsel by 

prisoners under D.C. sentence. Since I believe this result 

departs from congressional intent, I would read the statutory 

scheme broadly to maintain federal jurisdiction solely as a 

safety valve. Therefore, I concur only in the judgment. 

I. 

History matters here. Our current dilemma arises out of a 

succession of procedural anomalies that can only be described 

as “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” First, when section 23-

110 was enacted in 1970, the constitutional claim of appellate 

ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC) did not exist. The 

Supreme Court did not recognize a Sixth Amendment right to 

effective assistance of counsel on direct appeal of a criminal 

conviction until Evitts v. Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 395 (1985). 

Several years before Lucey, however, the District of Columbia 

Court of Appeals (DCCA) considered an appellate IAC claim 

in Streater v. United States, 429 A.2d 173 (D.C. 1980) 

(Streater I). In Streater I, the DCCA held Streater, a D.C. 

prisoner, could not raise the claim in a section 23-110 motion. 

The DCCA determined the claim was “not within the purview 

of § 23-110” because, among other reasons, Streater “has not 

argued that his sentence was imposed in violation of the 

Constitution of the United States.” Id. at 174. At the time, 

prior to Lucey, this was a correct statement of the scope of 

section 23-110. Relying on two federal circuit decisions 

interpreting the federal habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, the 

DCCA also noted section 23-110 “provides no basis upon 

which the trial court may review appellate proceedings.” Id. 

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In Streater v. Jackson, 691 F.2d 1026 (D.C. Cir. 1982) 

(Streater II), we reviewed the district court’s dismissal of 

Streater’s habeas petition. Streater argued he was given the 

“run around” by the D.C. courts. Id. at 1028. We observed 

the DCCA had not “enlightened Streater as to the remedy, if 

any, still open to him in the local courts.” Id. Reluctant to 

meddle with the DCCA’s jurisdiction, we ordered the district 

court to hold Streater’s petition in abeyance and invited the 

DCCA to consider his motion to recall the mandate. Id. It 

did. See Streater v. United States, 478 A.2d 1055 (D.C. 

1984). 

Fast forward to Watson v. United States, 536 A.2d 1056 

(D.C. 1987) (en banc), in which the DCCA again faced an 

appellate IAC claim, but this time post-Lucey. The DCCA 

revisited the procedural question of “how one may challenge 

previous counsel’s effectiveness on appeal.” Id. at 1059. 

Turning to Streater I, the DCCA again rejected section 23-

110 as a procedure for raising this claim because “the 

Superior Court should not have authority to rule on the 

constitutionality of an appellate proceeding.” Id. at 1060 

(citing Streater I, 429 A.2d at 174). The court also refused to 

allow the claim to be brought under the District’s general 

habeas statute, D.C. Code § 16-1901, for the same reason. Id. 

(citing Streater II, 691 F.2d at 1028). Having dismissed these 

statutory habeas remedies, the court identified an appropriate 

procedural vehicle for the claim: “A motion in this court to 

recall the mandate is the appropriate avenue to take in 

presenting a Lucey challenge.” Id. (citing United States v. 

Winterhalder, 724 F.2d 109, 111 (10th Cir. 1983)). In 

reaching this conclusion, the DCCA observed that in Streater 

II we had approved its decision to remove the claims from 

section 23-110 in Streater I. Id. at 1060–61. 

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II. 

With this history in mind, I turn to the statutory provision 

at issue, section 23-110(g), which provides: 

An application for a writ of habeas corpus in 

behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for 

relief by motion pursuant to this section shall not 

be entertained by the Superior Court or by any 

Federal or State court if it appears that the 

applicant has failed to make a motion for relief 

under this section or that the Superior Court has 

denied him relief, unless it also appears that the 

remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to 

test the legality of his detention. 

D.C. Code § 23-110(g). The court interprets this provision to 

mean the federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain a D.C. 

prisoner’s habeas petition whenever the prisoner is not 

“authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this 

section.” See Op. at 5–6. Because in Streater I the DCCA 

held appellate IAC claims cannot be presented in a section 23-

110 motion, the court correctly observes a prisoner with such 

a claim is not “authorized” to file a section 23-110 motion; 

thus, the court reasons, section 23-110 is “by definition, 

inadequate” to address those claims. Op. at 6. While it is true 

the statute’s plain words may be read to justify the court’s 

holding, the result is clearly at odds with the statute’s purpose. 

Enacted by Congress in 1970, section 23-110 was only 

one provision of a sweeping legislative reform designed to 

remove “local litigation” from the federal courts to the 

District of Columbia’s judicial system. Swain v. Pressley, 

430 U.S. 372, 375 (1977). As the Supreme Court noted in 

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Swain, section 23-110 created for prisoners under D.C. 

sentence a collateral procedure in the Superior Court 

“comparable” to the habeas statute for federal prisoners, 

section 2255. Id. Section 23-110, like section 2255, was 

“intended to substitute a different forum [the Superior Court] 

and a different procedure [section 23-110] for collateral 

review” of D.C. prisoners’ sentences. Id. at 378. The 

statute’s clear purpose was to shift initial habeas jurisdiction 

for D.C. prisoners from the federal courts to the District of 

Columbia courts. See Byrd v. Henderson, 119 F.3d 34, 36–37 

(D.C. Cir. 1997). 

This court now says the DCCA’s interpretation of section 

23-110 requires federal courts to assume jurisdiction over 

appellate IAC claims. The court in effect says, “The DCCA 

made us do it.” Congress enacted section 23-110 with the 

broad purpose of accomplishing the opposite result, and the 

DCCA, with our encouragement, exercised its best judgment 

in fashioning a procedural remedy for a heretofore 

unrecognized constitutional claim. The DCCA therefore 

could respond, “The D.C. Circuit made us do it.” 

III. 

The answer lies in section 23-110(g)’s “inadequate and 

ineffective” clause—what we have called the “safety valve.” 

Blair-Bey v. Quick, 151 F.3d 1036, 1042 (D.C. Cir. 1998). In 

Swain, the Supreme Court upheld section 23-110 against a 

Suspension Clause challenge, relying heavily on the last 

clause of section 23-110(g): “That clause allows the District 

Court to entertain a habeas corpus application if it ‘appears 

that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test 

the legality of [the applicant’s] detention.’” 430 U.S. at 381. 

Congress decided to replicate a “state” judicial system in the 

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5 

District of Columbia, with no interference from the federal 

courts unless the state habeas remedy is deficient. Logically, 

then, section 23-110(g) should be read purposively to require 

federal courts to determine if the remedy, including a 

substitute procedural mechanism like the motion to recall the 

mandate, is “adequate and effective to test the legality” of the 

prisoner’s detention. 

The DCCA’s motion to recall the mandate procedure is 

cumbersome, requiring the movant to meet a high initial 

burden. See Watson, 536 A.2d at 1060. It is thus unclear 

whether the recall-mandate procedure is an entirely adequate 

and effective remedy. But we do not have to answer that 

question in Williams’s case because the DCCA summarily 

denied his motion to recall the mandate, his motion for an 

explanation, and his petition for rehearing. The DCCA’s 

failure to explain why it denied Williams’s motion leaves us 

with no basis to determine whether it actually considered his 

claim on the merits or rejected the claim solely because 

Williams had failed to satisfy the initial burden for such 

motions. We therefore cannot find the remedy afforded 

Williams is adequate and effective, and section 23-110(g)’s 

safety valve operates to allow the federal district court 

jurisdiction to entertain his habeas petition. 

IV. 

 With all this in mind, I see no reason for the court to 

revisit the Streater question and reinterpret section 23-110(g). 

The court today does a bait-and-switch: it rejects the mandaterecall procedure and informs the DCCA the federal courts 

have jurisdiction to hear Williams’s claim and others like it 

unless the DCCA overrules its precedent and allows those 

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6 

claims to be heard by the Superior Court under section 23-

110. 

 It is true the procedural diktat the court imposes on the 

DCCA today is identical to the procedure we have adopted for 

ourselves. We “ordinarily” require federal prisoners to raise 

appellate IAC claims collaterally pursuant to section 2255. 

United States v. Henry, 472 F.3d 910, 914 (D.C. Cir. 2007). 

But to give credit where credit is due, at the time the DCCA 

adopted the motion to recall the mandate procedure—only a 

year after Lucey—its decision was eminently reasonable. 

Once the Supreme Court had authorized a new constitutional 

claim to challenge events happening after the trial court 

proceedings, it was logical to require the claim to be initiated 

in the court before which the alleged defect occurred. 

Moreover, when facing this same question, other federal 

and state appellate courts have made the exact same choice. 

See State v. Knight, 484 N.W.2d 540, 543 n.5 (Wis. 1992) 

(noting Third, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, Missouri, and the 

District of Columbia employed motion to recall the mandate 

procedure); see also United States v. West, 240 F.3d 456, 460 

n.3 (5th Cir. 2001) (surveying approaches of federal and state 

courts). Still other courts have answered the question 

differently than either the DCCA or our circuit. For instance, 

the Wisconsin Supreme Court, confronting a statutory 

provision nearly identical to section 23-110, determined the 

statutory provision was “‘inadequate or ineffective’” to 

address appellate IAC claims. Knight, 484 N.W.2d at 544. 

After considering the approaches taken by other appellate 

courts, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held the claim should be 

presented directly to the state appellate court in an original 

writ of habeas corpus. Id. at 544–45; see also West, 240 F.3d 

at 460 n.3 (observing Second Circuit recalls its own mandate 

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from dismissal of direct appeal after district court has denied 

section 2255 relief). We cannot fault the DCCA for doing 

exactly what other courts have done when facing this thorny 

procedural question. 

Because the court has determined, as a matter of law, that 

section 23-110 is inadequate and ineffective to raise appellate 

IAC claims, a D.C. prisoner may now file a habeas petition 

asserting this claim in the federal district court, and the court 

will be obligated to review the claim on the merits. In light of 

the exhaustion requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(c), the 

prisoner will first have to file a motion to recall the mandate 

with the DCCA. But even if the DCCA recalls the mandate, 

remands the record to the Superior Court for a factual hearing, 

and then denies the prisoner’s claim in a decision on the 

merits—clearly an adequate and effective remedy—the 

prisoner still gets a second (or more accurately third) bite at 

the apple in federal court. Some of these claims will be 

summarily resolved pursuant to AEDPA’s deferential 

standards, and it is unclear what the added burden on our 

courts will be. For instance, Williams’s appellate IAC claim 

appears to be little more than a string of tenuous arguments 

nested like Russian dolls. A better use of our judicial 

resources would be to assert jurisdiction only where the safety 

valve is truly implicated. 

 At this late hour, rather than leaving the DCCA with a 

Hobson’s choice, I would allow it to address the matter in the 

first instance, as we did in Streater II. There we noted, “it is 

apparent that the D.C. Court of Appeals is the tribunal best 

situated to address Streater’s claim that he was denied 

effective assistance of counsel in that forum.” 691 F.2d at 

1028. Principles of federalism and comity also gave us pause 

back then: “Mindful that relations between the District of 

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Columbia and federal systems should not be ‘disturbed by 

unnecessary conflict between courts equally bound to guard 

and protect rights secured by the Constitution,’ we believe the 

D.C. Court of Appeals should be invited to consider and rule 

on the merits of Streater’s claim for post-conviction relief.” 

Id. (quoting Ex parte Royall, 117 U.S. 241, 251 (1886)). 

These concerns are heightened when, as is the case here, we 

interpret a provision of the D.C. Code that is “an Act of 

Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia” 

because “[w]e do not treat such local statutes as if they were 

part of the United States Code,” and “[o]ur policy has been to 

defer to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals on 

questions of statutory interpretation.” United States v. 

Edmond, 924 F.2d 261, 264 (D.C. Cir. 1991). If, as in 

Streater II, we remanded Williams’s habeas petition to the 

federal district court and ordered it held in abeyance, we 

would allow the DCCA the opportunity either to recall its 

mandate and address Williams’s claim on the merits or to 

revisit the underlying question that has caused this court and 

others so many procedural headaches. 

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