Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

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

11 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

claims—which, importantly, the statute does not mention. 
To  put  it  bluntly:  Congress  knows  how  to  speak  clearly 
when it wants to disrupt the continuity of claims that are
available to prisoners before and after it enacts legislation
that addresses postconviction review procedures.  And ra-
ther than providing any such clear statement as to how an 
intervening claim of statutory innocence should be treated 
vis-à-vis §2255(h)’s second or successive bar, Congress was
conspicuously silent.5 

C 
The majority advances an entirely different theory of the
work that §2255(e) does with respect to the postconviction
review scheme—a theory that I do not find even remotely
persuasive.  Opting for the narrowest possible view of Con-
gress’s intent regarding the saving clause, the majority gen-
erally claims that the saving clause only authorizes the fil-
ing of a habeas petition if filing a §2255 motion would be
“impossible or impracticable.”  Ante, at 6, 11.  And in the 
majority’s telling, that circumstance only occurs, say, if the 
courthouse  where  a  §2255  motion  would  have  otherwise 
been filed has burned to the ground or been carried away 

—————— 

5 The  text  of  §2255(h)  says  nothing  about  legal  innocence  claims,  let
alone clearly expresses an intent to narrow the scope of available post-
conviction relief for that category of claims, in contrast to what the stat-
ute says about claims of new evidence or new constitutional rules.  Con-
gress could have easily stated somewhere in §2255(h) or §2244 that “no
circuit or district judge shall be required to consider a second or succes-
sive motion premised only on statutory claims, even claims suggesting
innocence,”  or  that  “a  court  of  appeals  shall  not  certify  or  authorize  a 
second or successive §2255 petition that raises a statutory claim only.” 
Yet nothing close to this kind of language, or distinction, appears on the 
face of the statute.  Nor does an intent to foreclose statutory innocence 
claims appear in the legislative history of §2255(h), even though that his-
tory  does  clearly  reflect  a  congressional  intent  to  narrow  the  scope  of 
postconviction  relief 
in 
§§2255(h)(1) and (2) (like new evidence claims), see, e.g., 141 Cong. Rec., 
at 15040, 15042 (statement of Sen. Levin). 

for  the  categories  expressly  mentioned