Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/521/320/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:20:38+00:00

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Wisconsin tried petitioner Lindh on noncapital murder and attempted murder charges. In response to his insanity defense, the State called a psychiatrist who had examined Lindh but who had come under criminal investigation for sexual exploitation of patients before the trial began. Lindh's attempt to question the doctor about that investigation in hopes of showing the doctor's interest in currying favor with the State was barred by the trial court, and Lindh was convicted. He was denied relief on his direct appeal, in which he claimed a violation of the Confrontation Clause. He raised that claim again in a federal habeas corpus application, which was denied, and he promptly appealed. Shortly after oral argument before the Seventh Circuit, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Act) amended the federal habeas statute. Following an en banc rehearing to consider the Act's impact, the court held that the amendments to chapter 153 of Title 28, which governs all habeas proceedings, generally apply to cases pending on the date of enactment; that applying the new version of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)-which governs standards affecting entitlement to relief-to pending cases would not have a retroactive effect barring its application under Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, because it would not attach new legal consequences to events preceding enactment; and that the statute applied to Lindh's case.
Held: Since the new provisions of chapter 153 generally apply only to cases filed after the Act became effective, they do not apply to pending noncapital cases such as Lindh's. Pp. 324-337.
wholly inapplicable to a particular case), as Lindh argues the recognition of a negative implication would do here. Pp. 324-326.
(b) The statute reveals Congress's general intent to apply the chapter 153 amendments only to cases filed after its enactment. The Act revised chapter 153 for all habeas proceedings. Then § 107 of the Act created an entirely new chapter 154 for habeas proceedings in capital cases, with special rules favorable to those States that meet certain conditions. Section 107(c) expressly applies chapter 154 to pending cases. The negative implication is that the chapter 153 amendments were meant to apply only to cases filed after enactment. If Congress was reasonably concerned to ensure that chapter 154 applied to pending cases, only a different intent explains the fact that it did not enact a similar provision for chapter 153. Had the chapters evolved separately and been joined together at the last minute, after chapter 154 had acquired its mandate, there might have been a possibility that Congress intended the same rule for each chapter, but was careless in the roughand-tumble. But those are not the circumstances here: § 107(c) was added after the chapters were introduced as a single bill. Section 107(c)'s insertion thus illustrates the familiar rule that negative implications raised by disparate provisions are strongest when the portions of a statute treated differently had already been joined together and were being considered simultaneously when the language raising the implication was inserted. See Field v. Mans, 516 U. S. 59. Respondent's one competing explanation-that § 107(c) was intended to fix an ambiguity over when a State would qualify for chapter 154's favorable rules-is too remote to displace the straightforward inference that chapter 153 was not meant to apply to pending cases. Finally, while new § 2264(b)-which was enacted within chapter 154 and provides that new §§2254(d) and (e) in chapter 153 would apply to pending chapter 154 cases-does not speak to the present issue with flawless clarity, it tends to confirm the interpretation of § 107(c) adopted here. It shows that Congress assumed that in the absence of § 2264(b), new §§ 2254(d) and (e) would not apply to pending cases. Pp.326-337.
96 F.3d 856, reversed and remanded.
SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, O'CONNOR, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. REHNQUIST, C. J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined, post, p. 337.
James S. Liebman argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Richard C. Neuhoff and Keith A. Findley.
* Judy Clarke and Lisa Kemler filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as amicus curiae urging reversal.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Ohio et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General of Ohio, Jeffrey S. Sutton, State Solicitor, and Simon B. Karas and Jon C. Walden, Assistant Attorneys General, Christine O. Gregoire, Attorney General of Washington, and Paul D. Weisser and John J. Samson, Assistant Attorneys General, John M. Bailey, Chief States Attorney of Connecticut, and Gus F. Diaz, Acting Attorney General of Guam, joined by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska, Grant Woods of Arizona, Winston Bryant of Arkansas, Daniel E. Lungren of California, Gale A. Norton of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Robert Butterworth of Florida, Michael J. Bowers of Georgia, Margery S. Bronster of Hawaii, Alan G. Lance of Idaho, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Jeffrey A. Modisett of Indiana, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, A. B. Chandler III of Kentucky, Richard P. Ieyoub of Louisiana, Scott Harshbarger of Massachusetts, Frank J. Kelley of Michigan, Hubert Humphrey III of Minnesota, Mike Moore of Mississippi, Jeremiah W Nixon of Missouri, Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada, Peter Verniero of New Jersey, Dennis C. Vacco of New York, Michael F. Easley of North Carolina, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Jeffrey B. Pine of Rhode Island, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, Mark Barnett of South Dakota, John Knox Walkup of Tennessee, Jan Graham of Utah, James B. Gilmore III of Virginia, Julio A. Brady of the Virgin Islands, and William U. Hill of Wyoming; for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo, Paul D. Kamenar, and Ronald D. Maines.
applications in noncapital cases that were already pending when the Act was passed. We hold that it does not.
Wisconsin tried Aaron Lindh on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder. In response to his insanity defense, the State called a psychiatrist who had spoken with Lindh immediately after the killings but had later, and before Lindh's trial, come under criminal investigation by the State for sexual exploitation of some of his patients. Although, at trial, Lindh tried to ask the psychiatrist about that investigation, hoping to suggest the witness's interest in currying favor with the State, the trial court barred the questioning. Lindh was convicted.
On direct appeal, Lindh claimed a violation of the Confrontation Clause of the National Constitution, but despite the denial of relief, Lindh sought neither review in this Court nor state collateral review. Instead, on July 9, 1992, he filed a habeas corpus application in the United States District Court, in which he again argued his Confrontation Clause claim. When relief was denied in October 1995, Lindh promptly appealed to the Seventh Circuit. Shortly after oral argument there, however, the federal habeas statute was amended, and the Seventh Circuit ordered Lindh's case be reheard en banc to see whether the new statute applied to Lindh and, if so, how his case should be treated.
The Seventh Circuit's decision that the new version of § 2254(d) applies to pending, chapter 153 cases conflicts with the holdings of Edens v. Hannigan, 87 F.3d 1109, 1112, n. 1 (CAlO 1996), Boria v. Keane, 90 F.3d 36, 37-38 (CA2 1996) (per curiam), and Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484 (CA9 1997). In accord with the Seventh Circuit is the § 2253(c) case of Hunter v. United States, 101 F.3d 1565, 1568-1573 (CAll 1996) (en bane) (relying on Lindh to hold certain amendments to chapter 153 applicable to pending cases). We granted certiorari limited to the question whether the new § 2254(d) applies to Lindh's case, 519 U. S. 1074 (1996), and we now reverse.
rules. When, however, the statute contains no such express command, the court must determine whether the new statute would have retroactive effect .... If the statute would operate retroactively, our traditional presumption teaches that it does not govern absent clear congressional intent favoring such a result." Landgraf, supra, at 280.
Wisconsin insists that this language means that, in the absence of an express command regarding temporal reach, this Court must determine that temporal reach for itself by applying its judicial default rule governing retroactivity, to the exclusion of all other standards of statutory interpretation. Brief for Respondent 9-14; see also Hunter v. United States, supra, at 1569 (suggesting that Landgraf may have announced a general clear-statement rule regarding the temporal reach of statutes).
against statutory retroactivity"); id., at 286 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (agreeing that "a legislative enactment affecting substantive rights does not apply retroactively absent clear statement to the contrary").
In determining whether a statute's terms would produce a retroactive effect, however, and in determining a statute's temporal reach generally, our normal rules of construction apply. Although Landgrafs default rule would deny application when a retroactive effect would otherwise result, other construction rules may apply to remove even the possibility of retroactivity (as by rendering the statutory provision wholly inapplicable to a particular case), as Lindh argues the recognition of a negative implication would do here. In sum, if the application of a term would be retroactive as to Lindh, the term will not be applied, even if, in the absence of retroactive effect, we might find the term applicable; if it would be prospective, the particular degree of prospectivity intended in the Act will be identified in the normal course in order to determine whether the term does apply to Lindh.
1 The other titles address such issues as restitution to victims of crime (Title II), various aspects of international terrorism (Titles II, III, IV, VII, VIII), restrictions on various kinds of weapons and explosives (Titles V and VI), and miscellaneous items (Title IX). See 110 Stat. 1214-1217.
2 Section 103 also amends Rule 22 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. 110 Stat. 1218.
1221. Then, for habeas proceedings against a State in capital cases, § 107 creates an entirely new chapter 154 with special rules favorable to the state party, but applicable only if the State meets certain conditions, including provision for appointment of postconviction counsel in state proceedings.3 110 Stat. 1221-1226. In § 107(c), the Act provides that "Chapter 154 ... shall apply to cases pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act." 110 Stat. 1226.
3 Section 108 further adds a "technical amendment" regarding expert and investigative fees for the defense under 21 U. S. C. § 848(q). 110 Stat. 1226.
4 In United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30, 34-37 (1992), this Court held that the existence of "plausible" alternative interpretations of statutory language meant that that language could not qualify as an "unambiguous" expression of a waiver of sovereign immunity. And cases where this Court has found truly "retroactive" effect adequately authorized by a statute have involved statutory language that was so clear that it could sustain only one interpretation. See Graham & Foster v. Goodcell, 282 U. S. 409, 416-420 (1931) (holding that a statutory provision "was manifestly intended to operate retroactively according to its terms" where the tax statute spelled out meticulously the circumstances that defined the claims to which it applied and where the alternative interpretation was absurd); Automobile Club of Mich. v. Commissioner, 353 U. S. 180, 184 (1957) (finding a clear statement authorizing the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to correct tax rulings and regulations "retroactively" where the statutory authorization for the Commissioner's action spoke explicitly in terms of "retroactivity"); United States v. Zacks, 375 U. S. 59, 65-67 (1963) (declining to give retroactive effect to a new substantive tax provision by reopening claims otherwise barred by statute of limitations and observing that Congress had provided for just this sort of retroactivity for other substantive provisions by explicitly creating new grace periods in which otherwise barred claims could be brought under the new substantive law). Cf. Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 55-57 (1996) (finding a clear statement of congressional abrogation of Eleventh Amendment immunity where the federal statute went beyond granting federal jurisdiction to hear a claim and explicitly contemplated "the State" as defendant in federal court in numerous provisions of the Act).
The next point that is significant for our purposes is that everything we have just observed about chapter 154 is true of changes made to chapter 153. As we have already noted, amended § 2254(d) (in chapter 153 but applicable to chapter 154 cases) governs standards affecting entitlement to relief. If, then, Congress was reasonably concerned to ensure that chapter 154 be applied to pending cases, it should have been just as concerned about chapter 153, unless it had the different intent that the latter chapter not be applied to the general run of pending cases.
proceedings pending on or commenced after the date of enactment of this Act." 511 U. S., at 260 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted). But, even if that language did qualify, its use of the sort of absolute language absent from § 107(c) distinguishes it. Cf. United States v. Williams, 514 U. S. 527, 531-532 (1995) (finding a waiver of sovereign immunity "unequivocally expressed" in language granting jurisdiction to the courts over "[ainy civil action against the United States for the recovery of any internal-revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or illegally assessed or collected" (emphasis in Williams; internal quotation marks omitted)); id., at 541 (SCALIA, J., concurring) ("The [clear-statement] rule does not ... ... require explicit waivers to be given a meaning that is implausible ... ").
prOVISIOn in chapter 154. But those are not the circumstances here. Although chapters 153 and 154 may have begun life independently and in different Houses of Congress,5 it was only after they had been joined together and introduced as a single bill in the Senate (S. 735) that what is now § 107(c) was added.6 Both chapters, therefore, had to have been in mind when § 107(c) was added. Nor was there anything in chapter 154 prior to the addition that made the intent to apply it to pending cases less likely than a similar intent to apply chapter 153. If anything, the contrary is true, as the discussion of § 2264(b) will indicate.
The insertion of § 107(c) with its different treatments of the two chapters thus illustrates the familiar rule that negative implications raised by disparate provisions are strongest when the portions of a statute treated differently had already been joined together and were being considered simultaneously when the language raising the implication was inserted. See Field v. Mans, 516 U. S. 59, 75 (1995) ("The more apparently deliberate the contrast, the stronger the inference, as applied, for example, to contrasting statutory sections originally enacted simultaneously in relevant respects ... "). When § 107(c) was added, that is, a thoughtful Member of the Congress was most likely to have intended just what the later reader sees by inference.
5 See 96 F.3d 856, 861 (CA7 1996). Lindh concedes this much. Brief for Petitioner 23, n. 15.
6 Amendment 1199, offered by Senator Dole on May 25, 1995, added what was then § 607(c) and now is § 107(c). See 141 Congo Rec. 14600, 14614 (1995). A comparison of S. 735 as it stood on May 1, 1995, and S. 735 as it passed the Senate on June 7, after the substitution of Amendment 1199, reveals that the part of the bill dealing with habeas corpus reform was substantially the same before and after the amendment in all ways relevant to our interpretation of § 107(c).
applications in capital cases when a State has met certain conditions. In general terms, applications will be expedited (for a State's benefit) when a State has made adequate provision for counsel to represent indigent habeas applicants at the State's expense. Thus, § 2261(b) provides that "[t]his chapter is applicable if a State establishes ... a mechanism for the appointment, compensation, and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel in State postconviction proceedings brought by indigent prisoners .... " 110 Stat. 1221-1222. There is an ambiguity in the provision just quoted, the argument runs, for it applies chapter 154 to capital cases only where "a State establishes ... a mechanism," leaving a question whether the chapter would apply if a State had already established such a mechanism before chapter 154 was passed. The idea is that the present tense of the word "establishes" might be read to rule out a State that already had "established" a mechanism, suggesting that when § 107(c) was added to provide that the chapter would apply to "cases pending" it was meant to eliminate the ambiguity by showing that all pending cases would be treated alike.
that anyone so sensitive as to find the unlikely ambiguity would be so delphic as to choose § 107(c) to fix it. Indeed, § 107(c) would (on the ambiguity hypothesis) be at least as uncertain as the language it was supposed to clarify, since "cases pending" could be read to refer to cases pending in States that set up their mechanisms only after the effective date of the Act. The hypothesis of fixing ambiguity, then, is too remote to displace the straightforward inference that chapter 153 was not meant to apply to pending cases.
Finally, we should speak to the significance of the new § 2264(b), which Lindh cites as confirming his reading of § 107(c) of the Act. While § 2264(b) does not speak to the present issue with flawless clarity, we agree with Lindh that it tends to confirm the interpretation of § 107(c) that we adopt. Section 2264(b) is a part of the new chapter 154 and provides that "[f]ollowing review subject to subsections (a), (d), and (e) of § 2254, the court shall rule on the claims [subject to expedited consideration] before it." 110 Stat. 1223. As we have said before, § 2254 is part of chapter 153 applying to habeas cases generally, including cases under chapter 154. Its subsection (a) existed before the Act, simply providing for a habeas remedy for those held in violation of federal law. Although § 2254 previously had subsections lettered (d) and (e) (dealing with a presumption of correctness to be accorded state-court factual findings and the production of state-court records when evidentiary sufficiency is challenged, respectively) the Act eliminated the old (d) and relettered the old (e) as (f); in place of the old (d), it inserted a new (d) followed by a new (e), the two of them dealing with, among other things, the adequacy of state factual determinations as bearing on a right to federal relief, and the presumption of correctness to be given such state determinations. 110 Stat. 1219. It is to these new provisions (d) and (e), then, that § 2264(b) refers when it provides that chapter 154 determinations shall be made subject to them.
on, that § 2264(b) is explicit in applying §§ 2254(d) and (e) to such capital cases in order to avoid any suggestion that when Congress enacted § 2264(a) to supersede §§ 2254(b) and (c) on exhaustion, Congress also meant to displace the neighboring provisions of §§ 2254(d) and (e) dealing with such things as the status of state factual determinations. But we find this unlikely. First, we find it hard to imagine why anyone would read a superseding exhaustion rule to address the applicability not just of the other exhaustion requirement but of provisions on the effect of state factual determinations. Anyone who did read the special provision for exhaustion in capital cases to supersede not only the general exhaustion provisions but evidentiary status and presumption provisions as well would have had to assume that Congress could reasonably have meant to leave the law on expedited capital cases (which is more favorable to the States that fulfill its conditions) without any presumption of the correctness of relevant state factual determinations. This would not, we think, be a reasonable reading and thus not a reading that Congress would have feared and addressed through § 2264(b). We therefore have to find a different function for the express requirement of § 2264(b) that chapter 154 determinations be made in accordance with §§ 2254(d) and (e).
exhaustion to be shown to be express, §2254(b)(3). No explanation for why Congress would have wanted to deny the States these advantages is apparent or offered by the parties, which suggests that no such effects were intended at all but that § 2264(a) was meant as a supplement to rather than a replacement for §§ 2254(b) and (c).
Nevertheless, as stated in the text, we assume for the sake of argument that the State's understanding of § 2264(a) as replacing rather than complementing the chapter 153 exhaustion requirements for chapter 154 is the correct one. Forceful arguments can be made on each side, and we do not need to resolve the conflict here.
supportive of the negative implication apparent in § 107(c). There would have been no need to provide expressly that subsections (d) and (e) would apply with the same temporal reach as the entirely new provisions of chapter 154 if all the new provisions in both chapters 153 and 154 were potentially applicable to cases pending when the Act took effect, as well as to those filed later. If the special provision for applying §§ 2254(d) and (e) in cases under chapter 154 has any utility, then, it must be because subsections (d) and (e) might not apply to all chapter 154 cases; since chapter 154 and the new sections of chapter 153 unquestionably apply alike to cases filed after the Act took effect, the cases to which subsections (d) and (e) from chapter 153 would not apply without express provision must be those cases already pending when the Act took effect. The utility of § 2264(b), therefore, is in providing that when a pending case is also an expedited capital case subject to chapter 154, the new provisions of §§ 2254(d) and (e) will apply to that case. The provision thus confirms that Congress assumed that in the absence of such a provision, §§ 2254(d) and (e) (as new parts of chapter 153) would not apply to pending federal habeas cases.
made for subsections (d) and (e). But there are reasons why Congress need not have made any special provisions for subsections (h) and (i) to apply to the "pending" chapter 154 cases. Subsections (h) and (i) deal, respectively, with the appointment of counsel for the indigent in the federal proceeding, and the irrelevance to habeas relief of the adequacy of counsel's performance in previous postconviction proceedings. See 110 Stat. 1219-1220. There was no need to make subsection (h) immediately available to pending cases, capital or not, because 21 U. S. C. § 848(q)(4)(B) already authorized appointment of counsel in such cases. And there was no reason to make subsection (i) immediately available for a State's benefit in expedited capital cases, for chapter 154 already dealt with the matter in § 2261(e), see 110 Stat. 1222. There is, therefore, a good fit of the § 2264(b) references with the inference that amendments to chapter 153 were meant to apply only to subsequently filed cases; where there was a good reason to apply a new chapter 153 provision in the litigation of a chapter 154 case pending when the Act took effect, § 2264(b) made it applicable, and when there was no such reason it did no such thing.
There is only one loose end. Section 2254(a) was an old provision, without peculiar relevance to chapter 154 cases, but applicable to them without any need for a special provision; as an old provision it was just like the lettered subsections (f) and (g). Why did § 2264(b) make an express provision for applying it to chapter 154 cases? No answer leaps out at us. All we can say is that in a world of silk purses and pigs' ears, the Act is not a silk purse of the art of statutory drafting.
judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The Court in this case conducts a truncated inquiry into a question of congressional intent, and, I believe, reaches the wrong result. The Court begins, uncontroversially enough, by observing that application of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) to pending cases depends upon congressional intent, and that our inquiry into that intent should rely upon the "normal rules" of statutory construction. Ante, at 326. The Court then proceeds, however, to disregard all of our retroactivity case law-which it rather oddly disparages as manifestations of "Landgrafs default rule," ibid.-in favor of a permissible, but by no means controlling, negative inference that it draws from the statutory text. I would instead interpret the AEDPA in light of the whole of our longstanding retroactivity jurisprudence, and accordingly find that the amended 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (1994 ed., Supp. II) applies to pending cases.
The first question we must ask is whether Congress has expressly resolved whether the provision in question applies to pending cases. Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244, 280 (1994). Here, the answer is plainly no. The AEDPA does not clearly state, one way or the other, whether chapter 153 applies to pending cases. Given congressional silence, we must still interpret that statute, and that interpretation is in turn guided by the retroactivity principles we have developed over the years. The Court relies on one canon of statutory interpretation, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, to the exclusion of all others.
plicable to pending cases, but did not make the same express provision in regards to chapter 153. That inference, however, is by no means necessary, nor is it even clearly the best inference possible. Certainly, Congress might have intended that omission to signal its intent that chapter 153 not apply to pending cases. But there are other, equally plausible, alternatives.
First, because chapter 154's applicability is conditioned upon antecedent events-namely, a State's establishing qualifying capital habeas representation procedures-Congress could have perceived a greater likelihood that, absent express provision otherwise, courts would fail to apply that chapter's provisions to pending capital cases. Second, because of the characteristically extended pendency of collateral attacks on capital convictions,l and because of Congress' concern with the perceived acquiescence in capital defendants' dilatory tactics by some federal courts (as evidenced by chapter 154's strict time limits for adjudication of capital cases and, indeed, by the very title of the statute, the "Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996"), Congress could very well have desired to speak with exacting clarity as to the applicability of the AEDPA to pending capital cases. Or third, Congress, while intending the AEDPA definitely to apply to pending capital cases, could have been uncertain or in disagreement as to which of the many portions of chapter 153 should or should not apply to pending cases. Congress could simply have assumed that the courts would sort out such questions, using our ordinary retroactivity presumptions.
1 See, e. g., Pet. for Habeas Corpus in In re Mata, O. T. 1995, No. 965679, p. 7 (describing how it took nine years and three months for a Federal District Court to deny, and the Ninth Circuit to affirm, petitioner's first federal capital habeas petition).
the solution is not nearly as implausible as the Court's contention that, in order to show that it wished chapter 153 not to apply to pending cases, Congress chose to make chapter 154 expressly applicable to such cases. If Congress wanted to make chapter 153 inapplicable to pending cases, the simplest way to do so would be to say so. But, if Congress was instead concerned that courts would interpret chapter 154, because of its contingent nature, as not applying to pending cases, the most direct way to solve that concern would be the solution it adopted: expressly stating that chapter 154 did indeed apply to pending cases.
The Court finds additional support for its inference in the new 28 U. S. C. § 2264(b) (1994 ed., Supp. II), which it believes "tends to confirm," ante, at 332, its analysis. Section 2264 is part of chapter 154 and forbids (subject to narrow exceptions) federal district courts to consider claims raised by state capital defendants unless those claims were first raised and decided on the merits in state court. Section 2264(b) provides, "[fJollowing review subject to subsections (a), (d), and (e) of section 2254 [contained within chapter 153], the court shall rule on the claims properly before it." This section, I believe, is irrelevant to the question before us.
The Court's somewhat tortured interpretation of this section, as a backhanded way of making §§ 2254(a), (d), and (e) (but not the rest of chapter 153) apply to pending cases, is not convincing. For one thing, § 2264(b) is not phrased at all as a timing provision; rather than containing temporal language applying select sections to pending cases, § 2264(b) speaks in present tense, about how review should be conducted under chapter 154. Even more tellingly, as the Court implicitly concedes when it blandly describes this provision as a "loose end," ante, at 336, the AEDPA did not alter § 2254(a), and so there is no need for an express provision making it applicable to pending cases.
§§ 2254(a), (d), and (e) apply to chapter 154 proceedings. That clarification makes sense in light of § 2264(a), which replaces the exhaustion requirement of §§ 2254(b) and (c) with a requirement that federal courts consider (subject to narrow exceptions) only those claims "raised and decided on the merits in the State courts." Without that clarification, doubt might exist as to whether the rest of § 2254 still applied in capital proceedings.
At this point the Court's analysis stops. Based on the weak inference from Congress' designation of chapter 154 as applying to pending cases and a strained reading of § 2264, the Court concludes that Congress impliedly intended for chapter 153 not to apply to pending cases. I would go on, and apply our ordinary retroactivity principles, as Congress no doubt assumed that we would.
tially based. See Judicial Conference of the United States, Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Habeas Corpus in Capital Cases, Committee Report and Proposal (Aug. 23, 1989). The Committee's Comment to Proposed §2259 (which tracks the AEDPA's §2264) explained as follows: "As far as new or 'unexhausted' claims are concerned, [this section] represents a change in the exhaustion doctrine as articulated in Rose v. Lundy, 455 U. S. 509 (1982). [This section] bars such claims from consideration unless one of the ... exceptions is applicable. The prisoner cannot return to state court to exhaust even if he would like to do so. On the other hand, if [an exception] is applicable, the district court is directed to conduct an evidentiary hearing and to rule on the new claim without first exhausting state remedies as Rose v. Lundy now requires. Because of the existence of state procedural default rules, exhaustion is futile in the great majority of cases. It serves the state interest of comity in theory, but in practice it results in delay and undermines the state interest in the finality of its criminal convictions. The Committee believes that the States would prefer to see post-conviction litigation go forward in capital cases, even if that entails a minor subordination of their interest in comity as it is expressed in the exhaustion doctrine." Id., at 22-23 (emphasis added).
precedents, were his state proceedings in federal court, we would have then applied existing procedural law, even though Lindh's primary conduct occurred some time earlier. The federal habeas proceeding at issue here is, in a sense, tertiary conduct. It is not the actual criminal conduct prohibited by law, nor is it the proceeding to determine whether the defendant in fact committed such conduct. Rather, it is a collateral proceeding that, in effect, attacks the judgment of the prior state proceeding. Section 2254(d), the precise section at issue here, simply alters the standard under which that prior judgment is evaluated, and is in that sense entirely procedural. Cf. Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U. S. 135, 139 (1920) (applying newly enacted harmlesserror statute, which changed the standard under which prior judgments were evaluated, to pending case).
Second, we have usually applied changes in law to prospective forms of relief. Landgraf, supra, at 273; see also Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443, 464 (1921); American Steel Foundries v. Tri-City Central Trades Council, 257 U. S. 184, 201 (1921); Hall v. Beals, 396 U. S. 45, 48 (1969) (per curiam); Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 U. S. 827, 852 (1990) (SCALIA, J., concurring). Unlike damages actions, which are "quintessentially backward looking," Landgraf, supra, at 282, the writ of habeas corpus is prospective in nature. Habeas does not compensate for past wrongful incarceration, nor does it punish the State for imposing it. See Lane v. Williams, 455 U. S. 624, 631 (1982). Instead, habeas is a challenge to unlawful custody, and when the writ issues it prevents further illegal custody. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 489, 494 (1973).
also Bruner v. United States, 343 U. S. 112, 116-117, and n. 8 (1952) ("Congress has not altered the nature or validity of petitioner's rights or the Government's liability but has simply reduced the number of tribunals authorized to hear and determine such rights and liabilities"); Hallowell v. Commons, 239 U. S. 506, 508 (1916); Sherman v. Grinnell, 123 U. S. 679, 680 (1887); Assessors v. Osbornes, 9 Wall. 567, 575 (1870); Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514 (1869); Insurance Co. v. Ritchie, 5 Wall. 541, 544-545 (1867). This is because such statutes "'speak to the power of the court rather than to the rights or obligations of the parties.''' Landgraf, supra, at 274 (quoting Republic Nat. Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U. S. 80, 100 (1992) (THOMAS, J., concurring)); see also 511 U. S., at 293 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) ("Our jurisdiction cases are explained, I think, by the fact that the purpose of provisions conferring or eliminating jurisdiction is to permit or forbid the exercise of judicial power-so that the relevant event for retroactivity purposes is the moment at which that power is sought to be exercised"). This is the principle most relevant to the case at hand.
disparaged our longstanding practice of applying jurisdiction-ousting statutes to pending cases.
Whether the approach is framed in terms of "retroactive effect," as the Landgraf majority put it, 511 U. S., at 280, or in terms of "the relevant activity that the rule regulates," as JUSTICE SCALIA'S concurrence put it, see id., at 291 (opinion concurring in judgment), our longstanding practice of applying procedural, prospective, and jurisdiction-ousting statutes to pending cases must play an important part in the decision. These principles all favor application of § 2254(d) to pending cases.
amici have pointed instead to the uniform body of our cases applying such changes to all pending cases. This has been true both of statutory changes in the scope of the writ, see, e. g., Gusik v. Schilder, 340 U. S. 128, 131-133, and n. 4 (1950) (applying 1948 habeas amendments to pending claims); Smith v. Yeager, 393 U. S. 122, 124-125 (1968) (per curiam) (applying 1966 habeas amendments to pending claims); Carafas v. La Vallee, 391 U. S. 234, 239 (1968) (same); Felker v. Turpin, 518 U. S. 651 (1996) (applying different section of the AEDPA to pending case), and of judicial changes, see, e. g., Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 495, n. 38 (1976) (rejecting petitioner's contention that change in law should apply prospectively); Sumner v. Mata, supra, at 539, 549-551 (applying presumption of correctness of state-court findings of fact to pending case); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977) (applying the cause and prejudice doctrine to pending case); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 638-639 (1993) (applying actual prejudice standard to pending case).
Because the Court's inquiry is incomplete, I believe it has reached the wrong result in this case. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

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