Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 67.0

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

35 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

we could have (and should have) easily concluded that there
is no statutory impediment to Jones’s §2255 motion being 
entertained by a court. 

III 
Finally, I believe that the canon of constitutional avoid-
ance  also  does  important  work  to  guide—and  constrain— 
the  Court’s  interpretation  of  §2255  in  this  case.  See 
Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678, 689 (2001); cf. Pressley, 
430 U. S., at 381–382 (relying on the saving clause to con-
clude that the District of Columbia’s postconviction statute,
which mirrored §2255, was constitutional).  The majority’s
bottom line, reading “the interplay” between §2255(h) and 
§2255(e), ante, at 1, is that a person in prison for noncrimi-
nal conduct cannot ask a federal court to review the legality 
of his detention if he has previously filed a §2255 petition.
This position is stunning in a country where liberty is a con-
stitutional guarantee and the courts are supposed to be dis-
pensing  justice.  It  also  raises  hackles  under  at  least  two 
provisions of our founding charter.

First,  the  Eighth  Amendment.    There  is  a  nonfrivolous 
argument that the Constitution’s protection against “cruel 
and unusual punishment” prohibits the incarceration of in-
nocent  individuals.  See  In  re  Davis,  557  U. S.  952,  953 
(2009) (Stevens, J., concurring) (citing Triestman v. United 
States, 124 F. 3d 361, 377–380 (CA2 1997)); see also Herrera 
v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 432, n. 2 (1993) (Blackmun, J., dis-
senting) (“It . . . may violate the Eighth Amendment to im-
prison someone who is actually innocent”); Robinson v. Cal-
ifornia, 370 U. S. 660, 667 (1962).  This is not to say that 
the Eighth Amendment creates a “freestanding entitlement 
to  a  second  or  successive  round  of  postconviction  review.” 
Ante, at 20.  But here Jones seeks a single meaningful op-
portunity to have a federal court consider his claim of legal 
innocence.