Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 56

24 

JONES v. HENDRIX 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

purported  finality  goals.  Consider  two  individuals  who 
have  been  convicted  of  the  same  federal  crime—perhaps
two  codefendants  who  were  tried  and  sentenced  together. 
Both  complete  their  direct  appeals,  but  only  one  files  a 
§2255 motion within AEDPA’s statute of limitations, while
the  other  one  decides  not  to  or  misses  the  deadline.  If 
§2255(h) bars a successive petition raising a legal innocence
claim, then when Rehaif is handed down—altering the ele-
ments  of  the  crime  of  conviction  such  that  both  prisoners
have a colorable claim of legal innocence—only the one who 
did not previously file a §2255 petition can raise this retro-
active statutory innocence claim. 

Reference  to  Congress’s  interest  in  “finality”  cannot  ex-
plain this odd unequal treatment.  Under the Court’s inter-
pretation,  a  prisoner  whose  conviction  became  final  30 
years ago can assert a Rehaif claim if he never previously
filed a §2255 motion, whereas someone whose conviction be-
came final 2 years ago cannot if he has already had a §2255
petition adjudicated.13 

Interpreting  §2255(h)  as  completely  foreclosing  succes-
sive  petitions  bringing  statutory  innocence  claims  also
places  prisoners  in  an  untenable  catch-22  that  cannot  be 
what  any  rational  Congress  actually  intended.    Consider 
what has happened in this very case.  Per AEDPA’s statute 
of  limitations,  Jones  had  to  file  his  first  §2255  petition
within one year of his conviction becoming final.  §2255(f ). 
He did so, and that petition was successful; the Eighth Cir-
cuit found that Jones had received ineffective assistance of 
counsel.  United States v. Jones, 403 F. 3d 604, 605 (2005). 
In  the  majority’s  view,  by  seeking  to  vindicate  his  Sixth 
Amendment rights in this way, Jones has forfeited, forever 

—————— 

13 Accommodating the possibility of retroactively applicable Supreme
Court opinions, §2255 runs the statute of limitations not just from the
date on which the conviction became final, but also from the date a new, 
retroactively  applicable  right  was  recognized  by  the  Supreme  Court. 
§2255(f )(3).