Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 32.0

2 

JONES v. HENDRIX 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting
SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

(1952).

With  that  understanding  in  mind,  consider  a  prisoner 
who, having already filed a motion for postconviction relief, 
discovers that a new decision of this Court establishes that 
his statute of conviction did not cover his conduct.  He is out 
of  luck  under  §2255,  because  §2255(h)  will  bar  his  claim. 
But that claim is cognizable at habeas, where we have long
held that federal prisoners can collaterally attack their con-
victions in successive petitions if they can make a colorable 
showing that they are innocent under an intervening deci-
sion of statutory construction.  See Davis, 417 U. S., at 344– 
347;  McCleskey  v.  Zant,  499  U. S.  467,  493–495  (1991). 
Congress did not abrogate that principle in §2255(h).  Thus, 
we have precisely the kind of mismatch the saving clause
was designed to address.   

In this case, the petitioner says he is that prisoner, with 
that mismatch.  But the Court of Appeals never considered 
that question, laboring under a mistaken view of the saving
clause  that,  like  the  majority’s,  assigns  it  almost  no  role.
Accordingly, we would remand for the lower courts to con-
sider  the  petitioner’s  claim  under  the  proper  framework. 
See Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7 (2005).