Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 53

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

21 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

seems to have “ ‘lost sight of the fact that’ ” federally incar-
cerated  individuals  “ ‘can  raise  federal  statutory  claims  in 
their collateral attacks.’ ”  Chazen, 938 F. 3d, at 863 (quot-
ing Hart & Wechsler 1362; emphasis added); Chazen, 938 
F. 3d,  at  863  (suggesting  that  the  omission  of  legal  inno-
cence claims from §2255(h) was due to “congressional over-
sight”); Reply Brief for Respondent 15. 

To me, this contextual revelation rocks the foundation of 
the  majority’s  negative  inference.    That  is,  it  is  plausible 
(and perhaps even likely) that Congress did not appreciate 
fully that the modeled-after language establishing a succes-
sive-petition bar did not capture the full scope of available
claims for federal prisoners.10  And, of course, if Congress
simply  overlooked  statutory  innocence  claims  when  it
crafted §2255(h), then the omitted language that the major-
ity puts so much stock in is not actually indicative of Con-
gress having “chosen finality” with respect to statutory in-
nocence  claims.  Ante,  at  12.  Instead,  the  absence  of  any 
textual  reference  to  statutory  innocence  would  be  wholly 
unremarkable. 

3 
Given the purpose and history of §2255(h) as I have just
described  them,  I  find  quite  compelling  the Government’s
observation that “[n]othing in AEDPA [actually] justifies an 

—————— 

10 The rushed and emotionally charged manner in which AEDPA came 
into fruition makes Congress’s lack of attention to this detail a very re-
alistic possibility.  AEDPA was passed in reaction to the Oklahoma City
bombing, and President Clinton had “demand[ed]” its passage by the 1-
year  anniversary  of  that  event.   J.  Liebman,  An  “Effective  Death  Pen-
alty”? AEDPA and Error Detection in Capital Cases, 67 Brooklyn L. Rev. 
411, 413 (2011); see also Stevenson, 77 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 701.  Both this 
Court and commentators have observed that, likely as a result, AEDPA 
is “shoddily crafted and poorly cohered.”  L. Kovarsky, Death Ineligibility 
and Habeas Corpus, 95 Cornell L. Rev. 329, 342 (2010); see also Lindh v. 
Murphy, 521 U. S. 320, 336 (1997) (“[I]n a world of silk purses and pigs’ 
ears, [AEDPA] is not a silk purse of the art of statutory drafting”).