Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 61.0

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

29 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

“finality”—and seems to draw a line between AEDPA’s stat-
ute  of  limitations,  which  does  get  clear-statement  treat-
ment,  and  its  provisions  governing  successive  petitions. 
Ante, at 23–24.  This is nonsense.  Both AEDPA provisions
use similar language.  §2255(f ) (“A 1-year period of limita-
tion shall apply to a motion under this section”); §2255(h) 
(“A second or successive motion must . . . contain . . . ”).  And 
both procedural limitations relate to Congress’s interest in 
finality.  Ante, at 24; Wood v. Milyard, 566 U. S. 463, 472 
(2012)  (noting  that  AEDPA’s  statute  of  limitations  “lends 
finality  to  . . .  court  judgments  within  a  reasonable  time” 
(emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted)).17 

Next, the majority conspicuously downplays the stakes in
this case.  Not once does its opinion make direct mention of 
the fact that the claim the majority says §2255(h) silently 
precludes is one that implicates core values because it in-
volves legal innocence.  Instead, the majority repeatedly de-
scribes  Jones’s  bid  for  access  to  the  postconviction  review
process as bringing a mere “statutory” claim.  Ante, at 2, 12, 
21, 23.18  But statutory claims that suggest a person’s inno-
cence are different in kind from more run-of-the-mill statu-
tory claims, such as a technical, nonprejudicial violation of
a criminal procedure rule.  See United States v. Addonizio, 
—————— 

17 This Court has also treated these two provisions as similarly suscep-
tible  to  equitable  exceptions;  for  instance,  the  “miscarriage  of  justice” 
principle  that  permits  bypassing  procedural  barriers  applies  to  both. 
McQuiggin, 569 U. S., at 386, 392–393; Schlup, 513 U. S., at 320. 

18 The euphemistic manner in which the Court’s opinion tiptoes around
what Jones is actually arguing is noteworthy.  The majority says that, 
by  operation  of  §2255(h),  prisoners  in  Jones’s  position  cannot  take  ad-
vantage of “a more favorable interpretation of statutory law,” ante, at 1, 
which it also obliquely characterizes as “an intervening change in statu-
tory interpretation,” ante, at 3, or “a newly adopted narrowing interpre-
tation of a criminal statute,” ante, at 9.  In fact, the word “innocence” only
appears in the Court’s opinion when recounting the Government’s argu-
ments.  Ante,  at  21,  23.  If  the  majority  has  spared  a  thought  for  the 
appropriate  standard  when  a  petitioner  is  claiming  legal  innocence,  I
could not find it in the Court’s opinion.