Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 49

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

17 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

5–6; see also Part I, supra.  To be sure, Congress has under-
taken  to  restrict  the  writ’s  availability  somewhat  since
§2255 was first enacted, but it has nevertheless continued 
to appreciate the significance of access to postconviction re-
view of the legality of a prisoner’s detention.  Hence, even 
after AEDPA, Congress permits all incarcerated individu-
als—including  those  who  have  been  convicted  of  serious 
crimes and who are serving sentences that have been im-
posed by courts of competent jurisdiction—to seek collateral
relief.  See §§2254(a), 2255(a). 

Still,  when  it  enacted  AEDPA  in  1996,  Congress  was
aware of how §2255’s postconviction processes had been op-
erating on the ground since §2255’s enactment.  Thus, Con-
gress quite rationally sought to “ ‘balance’ ” the “ ‘individual 
interest  in  justice  that  arises  in  the  extraordinary  case’ ” 
with “ ‘the societal interests in finality, comity, and conser-
vation of scarce judicial resources.’ ”  McQuiggin v. Perkins, 
569 U. S. 383, 393 (2013) (quoting Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 
298, 324 (1995)).

Section 2255(h) reflects this balancing.  “What emerges
from a review of the debates over the successive petition re-
strictions  is  a  clear  sense  that”  Congress  wanted  to  “pre-
ven[t]  manipulation  of  the  system  through  relitigation  of 
previously  presented  claims  or  strategic  withholding  of 
claims for later presentation,” while still creating “a mech-
anism  that  would  allow  prisoners  to  have  one  full,  fair 
chance to present their meritorious . . . claims to the federal 
courts.”  B. Stevenson, The Politics of Fear and Death: Suc-
cessive Problems in Capital Federal Habeas Corpus Cases, 
77 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 699, 772 (2002).  As Senator Hatch said 
at the time: “We have provided for protection of Federal ha-
beas corpus, but we do it one time and that is it—unless, of 
course, they can truly come up with evidence of innocence 
that could not have been presented at trial.  There we allow 
successive petitions.”  141 Cong. Rec. 15042 (1995).  Then-
Senator Biden similarly explained that the goal of AEDPA