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Page Number: 19.0

14 

JONES v. HENDRIX 

Opinion of the Court 

a broad range of circumstances, we find this excursus irrel-
evant  to  the  question  presented  here.    To  the  extent  that 
Congress’ use of “inadequate” in the saving clause harkens
back to equity’s historic use of that term (an issue we need 
not address), the most Jones’ evidence proves is that a va-
riety  of  circumstances  might  make  it  impracticable  for  a 
prisoner to seek relief from the sentencing court.  Cf. Hay-
man, 342 U. S., at 215, n. 23.  Nothing in Jones’ survey of
equity jurisprudence, however, even begins to suggest that 
the saving clause offers an exemption from AEDPA’s clear 
limits on second or successive collateral attacks. 

Trying  a  different  tack,  Jones  suggests  that  the  saving 
clause’s use of the present tense (“is inadequate or ineffec-
tive”) means that §2241 is available whenever a prisoner is 
presently unable to file a §2255 motion.  Even the Circuits 
with an expansive view of the saving clause have uniformly 
rejected this argument, and for good reason.  See, e.g., In re 
Jones, 226 F. 3d, at 333; Dorsainvil, 119 F. 3d, at 251.  Were 
this argument accepted, AEDPA’s changes to §2255 would 
be entirely futile, as §2241 would be available any time the 
second-or-successive  restrictions  precluded  relief.    We  de-
cline  to  infer  that  Congress  intended  AEDPA’s  carefully 
crafted  limits  on  collateral  relief  under  §2255  to  be  mere
nullities. 

As a backstop to his scattershot textual arguments, Jones
invokes the constitutional-doubt canon, arguing that deny-
ing him the chance to raise his Rehaif claim in a §2241 pe-
tition raises serious constitutional questions.  It does not.5 

—————— 

5 As  Court-appointed  amicus  curiae  observes,  Jones’  use  of  the 
constitutional-doubt canon is somewhat anomalous, in that it aims at a 
different  result  from  what  a  direct  constitutional  challenge  would 
achieve.  If a prisoner persuaded a court that the exclusion of statutory 
claims from §2255(h) was unconstitutional, the result would not be that
he could proceed under §2241, but simply that he could file a second or 
successive  §2255  motion  on  an  equal  footing  with  §§2255(h)(1)  and 
2255(h)(2) claims.