Source: http://legaliq.com/Case/Schlup_V_Delo
Timestamp: 2017-08-21 00:35:42
Document Index: 506321729

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2255', '§ 2255', '§ 2244', '§ 2244', '§ 2254', '§ 2244', 'art, 714', 'art, 891']

Schlup v. Delo (513 U.S. 298, 115 S. Ct. 851, 130 L. Ed. 2d 808)
Case Name: Schlup v. Delo
Citations: 513 U.S. 298, 115 S. Ct. 851, 130 L. Ed. 2d 808, 1995 U.S. LEXIS 701
Docket #: 93-7901
Petitioner Lloyd E. Schlup, Jr., a Missouri prisoner currently under a sentence of death, filed a second federal habeas corpus petition alleging that constitutional error deprived the jury of critical evidence that would have established his innocence. The District Court, without conducting an evidentiary hearing, declined to reach the merits of the petition, holding that petitioner could not satisfy the threshold showing of "actual innocence" required by Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992). Under Sawyer, the petitioner must show "by clear and convincing evidence that, but for a constitutional error, no reasonable juror would have found the petitioner" guilty. Id. , at 336. The Court of Appeals affirmed. We granted certiorari to consider whether the Sawyer standard provides adequate protection against the kind of miscarriage of justice that would result from the execution of a person who is actually innocent.
After deliberating overnight, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Following the penalty phase, at which the victim of one of Schlup's prior offenses testified extensively about the sordid details of that offense,[11] the jury sentenced Schlup to death. The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed Schlup's conviction and death sentence, State v. Schlup, 724 S. W. 2d 236 (Mo. 1987), and this Court denied certiorari, Schlup v. Missouri, 482 U. S. 920 (1987).[12]
On January 5, 1989, after exhausting his state collateral remedies,[13] Schlup filed a pro se petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, asserting the claim, among others, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to interview and to call witnesses who could establish Schlup's innocence.[14] The District Court concluded that Schlup's ineffectiveness claim was procedurally barred, and it denied relief on that claim without conducting an evidentiary hearing.[15] The Court of Appeals affirmed, though it did not rely on the alleged procedural bar. Schlup v. Armontrout, 941 F. 2d 631 (CA8 1991). Instead, based on its own examination of the record, the Court found that trial counsel's performance had not been constitutionally ineffective, both because counsel had reviewed statements that Schlup's potential witnesses had given to prison investigators, and because the testimony of those witnesses "would be repetitive of the testimony to be presented at trial." Id. , at 639.[16] But cf. 11 F. 3d 738, 746, *307 n. 3 (CA8 1993) (Heaney, J., dissenting) (challenging the conclusion that such testimony would have been "repetitive"). The Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc, Schlup v. Armontrout, 945 F. 2d 1062 (1991), and we denied a petition for certiorari, 503 U. S. 909 (1992).
On August 23, 1993, without holding a hearing, the District Court dismissed Schlup's second habeas petition and vacated the stay of execution that was then in effect. The District Court concluded that Schlup's various filings did not provide adequate cause for failing to raise his new claims more promptly. Moreover, the court concluded that Schlup had failed to meet the Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992), standard for showing that a refusal to entertain those claims would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. In its discussion of the evidence, the court made no separate comment on the significance of Green's statement.[19]
On October 15, 1993, the Court of Appeals denied the stay application. In an opinion that was subsequently vacated, the majority held that petitioner's claim of innocence was governed by the standard announced in Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992), and it concluded that under that standard, the evidence of Schlup's guilt that had been adduced at trial foreclosed consideration of petitioner's current constitutional claims.[22]
On November 15, 1993, the Court of Appeals vacated its earlier opinion and substituted a more comprehensive analysis of the law to support its decision to deny Schlup's request for a stay. 11 F. 3d 738. The majority adhered to its earlier conclusion that Sawyer stated the appropriate standard for evaluating Schlup's claim of actual innocence. 11 F. 3d, at 740. The opinion also contained an extended discussion of Schlup's new evidence. The court noted in particular that Green's new affidavit was inconsistent in part with both his prison interview and his testimony at the Stewart trial. Id. , at 742. The court viewed Faherty's affidavit as simply "an effort to embellish and expand upon his testimony" and concluded "that a habeas court should not permit retrial on such a basis." Id. ,at 743.
On November 17, 1993, the Court of Appeals denied a suggestion for rehearing en banc. Dissenting from that denial, three judges joined an opinion describing the question whether the majority should have applied the standard announced in Sawyer v. Whitley, supra, rather than the Kuhlmann standard as "a question of great importance in habeas corpus jurisprudence." 11 F. 3d, at 755. We granted certiorari to consider that question. 511 U. S. 1003 (1994).[27]
As a preliminary matter, it is important to explain the difference between Schlup's claim of actual innocence and the *314 claim of actual innocence asserted in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390 (1993). In Herrera, the petitioner advanced his claim of innocence to support a novel substantive constitutional claim, namely, that the execution of an innocent person would violate the Eighth Amendment.[28] Under petitioner's theory in Herrera, even if the proceedings that had resulted in his conviction and sentence were entirely fair and error free, his innocence would render his execution a "constitutionally intolerable event." Id., at 419 (O'Connor, J., concurring).
Schlup's claim of innocence, on the other hand, isprocedural, rather than substantive. His constitutional claims are based not on his innocence, but rather on his contention that the ineffectiveness of his counsel, see Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), and the withholding of evidence by the prosecution, see Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), denied him the full panoply of protections afforded to criminal defendants by the Constitution. Schlup, however, faces procedural obstacles that he must overcome before a federal court may address the merits of those constitutional claims. Because Schlup has been unable to establish "cause and prejudice" sufficient to excuse his failure to present his evidence in support of his first federal petition, see McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 493-494 (1991),[29] Schlup may obtain review of his constitutional claims only if he falls *315 within the "narrow class of cases . . . implicating a fundamental miscarriage of justice," id., at 494. Schlup's claim of innocence is offered only to bring him within this "narrow class of cases."
The Court has explained the early tolerance of successive petitions, in part, by the fact that the writ originally performed only the narrow function of testing either the jurisdiction of the sentencing court or the legality of Executive detention. See McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 478; Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72, 78 (1977).[33] The scope of the writ later expanded beyond its original narrow purview to encompass *318 review of constitutional error that had occurred in the proceedings leading to conviction. See McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 478-479; Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S., at 79. That broadening of the scope of the writ created the risk that repetitious filings by individual petitioners might adversely affect the administration of justice in the federal courts. Such filings also posed a threat to the finality of state-court judgments and to principles of comity and federalism. See, e. g., McCleskey, 499 U. S.,at 491; Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 487 (1986).
These same concerns resulted in a number of recent decisions from this Court that delineate the circumstances under which a district court may consider claims raised in a second or subsequent habeas petition. In those decisions, the Court held that a habeas court may not ordinarily reach the merits of successive claims, Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S. 436 (1986), or abusive claims, McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 493, absent a showing of cause and prejudice, see Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977).[34] The application of cause and *319 prejudice to successive and abusive claims conformed to this Court's treatment of procedurally defaulted claims. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478; see also McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 490-491 ("The doctrines of procedural default and abuse of the writ implicate nearly identical concerns flowing from the significant costs of federal habeas corpus review"). See generally Sawyer, 505 U. S., at 338-340. The net result of this congressional and judicial action has been the adoption in habeas corpus of a "`qualified application of the doctrine of res judicata.' " McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 486, quoting Senate Report, at 2.[35]
At the same time, the Court has adhered to the principle that habeas corpus is, at its core, an equitable remedy. This Court has consistently relied on the equitable nature of habeas corpus to preclude application of strict rules of res judicata. Thus, for example, in Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), this Court held that a habeas court must adjudicate even a successive habeas claim when required to do so by the "ends of justice." Id. , at 15-17; see also McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 495. The Sanders Court applied this equitable exception even to petitions brought under 28 *320 U. S. C. § 2255, though the language of § 2255 contained no reference to an "ends of justice" inquiry. 373 U. S., at 12-15.
We firmly established the importance of the equitable inquiry required by the ends of justice in "a trio of 1986 decisions" handed down on the same day. Sawyer, 505 U. S., at 339 (referring to Kuhlmann v. Wilson , 477 U. S. 436, Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, and Smith v. Murray, 477 U. S. 527). In Kuhlmann, seven Members of this Court squarely rejected the argument that in light of the 1966 amendments, "federal courts no longer must consider the `ends of justice' before dismissing a successive petition." 477 U. S., at 451 (plurality opinion); id. , at 468-471 (Brennan, J., dissenting); id. , at 476-477 (Stevens, J., dissenting); see also Sawyer, 505 U. S., at 339 (noting that in Kuhlmann, "[w]e held that despite the removal of [the reference to the ends of justice] from 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b) in 1966, the miscarriage of justice exception would allow successive claims to be heard"). Thus, while recognizing that successive petitions are generally precluded from review, Justice Powell's plurality opinion expressly noted that there are "limited circumstances under which the interests of the prisoner in relitigating constitutional claims held meritless on a prior petition may outweigh the countervailing interests served by according finality to the prior judgment." 477 U. S., at 452. Similarly, writing for the Court in Carrier, Justice O'Connor observed that the Court had adopted the cause and prejudice standard in part because of its confidence that that standard would provide adequate protection to "`victims of a fundamental miscarriage of justice,' " 477 U. S., at 495-496, quoting Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 135 (1982); however, Justice O'Connor also noted that the Court has candidly refused to "pretend that this will always be true," Carrier, 477 U. S., at 496. For that reason, "`[i]n appropriate cases,' the principles of comity and finality that inform the concepts of cause and prejudice `must yield to the imperative of correcting a fundamentally *321 unjust incarceration.' " Id. , at 495, quoting Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S., at 135; see also Smith v. Murray, 477 U. S., at 537. In subsequent cases, we have consistently reaffirmed the existence and importance of the exception for fundamental miscarriages of justice. See, e. g., Sawyer, 505 U. S., at 339-340; McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 494-495; Dugger v. Adams, 489 U. S. 401, 414 (1989) (Blackmun, J., dissenting).
Of greater importance, the individual interest in avoiding injustice is most compelling in the context of actual innocence. The quintessential miscarriage of justice is the execution *325 of a person who is entirely innocent.[41] Indeed, concern about the injustice that results from the conviction of an innocent person has long been at the core of our criminal justice system. That concern is reflected, for example, in the "fundamental value determination of our society that it is far worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free." In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 372 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). See also T. Starkie, Evidence 756 (1824) ("The maxim of the law is . . . that it is better that ninety-nine . . . offenders should escape, than that one innocent man should be condemned"). See generally Newman, Beyond "Reasonable Doubt," 68 N. Y. U. L. Rev. 979, 980 981 (1993).
The overriding importance of this greater individual interest merits protection by imposing a somewhat less exacting standard of proof on a habeas petitioner alleging a fundamental miscarriage of justice than on one alleging that his sentence is too severe. As this Court has noted, "a standard of proof represents an attempt to instruct the fact finder concerning the degree of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual conclusions for a particular type of adjudication." In re Winship, 397 U. S., at 370 (Harlan, J., concurring); see also Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 423 (1979). The standard of proof thus reflects "the relative importance attached to the ultimate decision." Ibid. Though the Sawyer standard was fashioned to reflect the relative importance of a claim of an erroneous sentence, application of that standard to petitioners such as Schlup would give insufficient weight to the correspondingly greater injustice that is implicated by a claim of actual innocence. The *326 paramount importance of avoiding the injustice of executing one who is actually innocent thus requires application of the Carrier standard.[42]
The consideration in federal habeas proceedings of a broader array of evidence does not modify the essential meaning of "innocence." The Carrier standard reflects the proposition, firmly established in our legal system, that the line between innocence and guilt is drawn with reference to a reasonable doubt. See In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970). Indeed, even in Sawyer, with its emphasis on eligibility for the death penalty, the Court did not stray from the understanding that the eligibility determination must be made with reference to reasonable doubt. Thus, whether a court is assessing eligibility for the death penalty under Sawyer, or is deciding whether a petitioner has made the requisite showing of innocence under Carrier, the analysis must incorporate the understanding that proof beyond a reasonable doubt marks the legal boundary between guilt and innocence.[47]
*330 Though the Carrier standard requires a substantial showing, it is by no means equivalent to the standard of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), that governs review of claims of insufficient evidence. The Jackson standard, which focuses on whether any rational juror could have convicted, looks to whether there is sufficient evidence which, if credited, could support the conviction. The Jackson standard thus differs in at least two important ways from the Carrier standard. First, under Jackson, the assessment of the credibility of witnesses is generally beyond the scope of review. In contrast, under the gateway standard we describe today, the newly presented evidence may indeed call into question the credibility of the witnesses presented at trial. In such a case, the habeas court may have to make some credibility assessments. Second, and more fundamentally, the focus of the inquiry is different under Jackson than under Carrier. Under Jackson, the use of the word "could" focuses the inquiry on the power of the trier of fact to reach its conclusion. Under Carrier, the use of the word "would" focuses the inquiry on the likely behavior of the trier of fact.
In this case, the application of the Carrier standard arises in the context of a request for an evidentiary hearing. In applying the Carrier standard to such a request, the District *332 Court must assess the probative force of the newly presented evidence in connection with the evidence of guilt adduced at trial. Obviously, the court is not required to test the new evidence by a standard appropriate for deciding a motion for summary judgment. Cf. Agosto v. INS, 436 U. S. 748, 756 (1978) ("[A] district court generally cannot grant summary judgment based on its assessment of the credibility of the evidence presented"); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U. S. 242, 249 (1986) ("[A]t the summary judgment stage the judge's function is not himself to weigh the evidence and determine the truth of the matter but to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial"). Instead, the court may consider how the timing of the submission and the likely credibility of the affiants bear on the probable reliability of that evidence.
The Court holds that, in order to have an abusive or successive habeas claim heard on the merits, a petitioner who cannot demonstrate cause and prejudice "must show that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him" in light of newly discovered evidence of innocence. Ante, at 327. This standard is *333 higher than that required for prejudice, which requires only "a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt respecting guilt," Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 695 (1984). Instead, a petitioner does not pass through the gateway erected by Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478 (1986), if the district court believes it more likely than not that there is any juror who, acting reasonably, would have found the petitioner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And the Court's standard, which focuses the inquiry on the likely behavior of jurors, is substantively different from the rationality standard of Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). Jackson, which emphasizes the authority of the factfinder to make conclusions from the evidence, establishes a standard of review for the sufficiency of record evidencea standard that would be ill suited as a burden of proof, see Concrete Pipe & Products of Cal., Inc. v. Construction
& Trust Laborers Pension for Southern Cal., 508 U. S. 602, 624-626 (1993). The Court today does not sow confusion in the law. Rather, it properly balances the dictates of justice with the need to ensure that the actual innocence exception remains only a "`safety valve' for the `extraordinary case,' " Harris v. Reed, 489 U. S. 255, 271 (1989) (O'Connor, J., concurring).
Moreover, the Court does not, and need not, decide whether the fundamental miscarriage of justice exception is a discretionary remedy. It is a paradigmatic abuse of discretion for a court to base its judgment on an erroneous view of the law. See Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 496 U. S. 384, 405 (1990). Having decided that the district court committed legal error, and thus abused its discretion, by relying on Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333 (1992), instead of Murray v. Carrier, supra, the Court need not decide the questionneither argued by the parties nor passed upon by the Court of Appealswhether abuse of discretion is the proper standard of review. In reversing the judgment of the Court *334 of Appeals, therefore, the Court does not disturb the traditional discretion of district courts in this area, nor does it speak to the standard of appellate review for such judgments.
The District Court denied petitioner's second habeas petition without conducting an evidentiary hearing. While on appeal, petitioner supplemented his habeas petition with an additional affidavit from Robert Faherty, a former prison guard who previously testified at petitioner's trial. A divided panel of the Eighth Circuit applied the Sawyer standard to petitioner's gateway claim of "actual innocence" and determined that petitioner failed to meet that standard. The Eighth Circuit denied rehearing en banc. We granted certiorari to determine when, absent a showing of cause *338 and prejudice, a district court may consider the merits of an abusive or successive habeas petition. 511 U. S. 1003 (1994).
In Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S. 436 (1986), the Court examined when a federal court could entertain a successive habeas petition. A plurality of the Court determined that the "`ends of justice' " required a district court to entertain the merits of an otherwise defaulted petition where the prisoner supplemented his constitutional claim with a showing of factual innocence. Id., at 454. After citing Judge Friendly's definition of factual innocence, the plurality summarily determined that the District Court should not have entertained Wilson's petition because the evidence of guilt in his case had been "`nearly overwhelming.' " Id., at 455.
In the course of elaborating the Carrier standard, the Court takes pains to point out that it differs from the standard enunciated in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979), for review of the sufficiency of the evidence to meet the constitutional standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Under Jackson, "the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Id., at 319. This standard requires a solely retrospective analysis of the evidence considered by the jury and reflects a healthy respect for the trier of fact's "responsibility . . . to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts." Ibid.
The present state of our habeas jurisprudence is less than ideal in its complexity, but today's decision needlessly adds to that complexity. I believe that by adopting the Sawyer standard both for attacks on the sentence and on the judgment of conviction, we would take a step in the direction of simplifying this jurisprudence. See Keeney v. TamayoReyes, 504 U. S. 1, 10 (1992) (noting the importance of uniformity in the law of habeas corpus). The Sawyer standard strikes the proper balance among the State's interest in finality, McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 491-492 (1991), the federal courts' respect for principles of federalism, see, e. g., Teague v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 309 (1989) (plurality opinion), and "the ultimate equity on the prisoner's sidea sufficient showing of actual innocence," Withrow v. Williams, 507 U. S. 680, 700 (1993) (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The Court of Appeals fully analyzed petitioner's new evidence and determined that petitioner fell way short of "`showing by clear and convincing evidence [that] no reasonable juror would find him [guilty of murder].' " 11 F. 3d 738, 743 (CA8 1993) (quoting Sawyer, supra, at 348). I agree and therefore would affirm.
Our earliest cases, from an era before Congress legislated rules to govern the finality of habeas adjudication, held that successive or abusive petitions were "to be disposed of in the exercise of a sound judicial discretion guided and controlled by a consideration of whatever has a rational bearing on the propriety of the discharge sought," and that when weighing those considerations the district court could give "controlling weight" to "a prior refusal to discharge on a like application." Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 231 (1924) (successive petition); *345 see also Wong Doo v. United States, 265 U. S. 239, 240 241 (1924) (abusive petition). In Salinger the Court particularly noted: "Here the prior refusal to discharge [the prisoner] was by a court of coordinate jurisdiction and was affirmed in a considered opinion by a Circuit Court of Appeals. Had the District Court disposed of the later applications on that ground, its discretion would have been well exercised and we should sustain its action without saying more." 265 U. S., at 232. Section 2244 is no more and no less than a codification of this approach. It is one of the disheartening ironies of today's decision that the Court not merely disregards a statute, but in doing so denies district judges the very discretion that the Court itself freely entrusted to them before Congress spoke.
"No circuit or district judge shall be required to entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the detention of a person pursuant to a judgment of a court of the United States, or of any State, if it appears that the legality of such detention has been determined by a judge or court of the United States on a prior application for a writ of habeas corpus and the petition presents no new ground not theretofore presented and determined, and the judge or court is satisfied that the ends of justice will not be served by such inquiry. " 28 U. S. C. § 2244 (1964 ed.) (emphasis added). This provision was construed in Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), and (with unimpeachable logic) was held to mean that "[c]ontrolling weight may be given to denial of a prior application for federal habeas corpus [under 28 U. S. C. § 2254] only if (1) the same ground presented in the subsequent application was determined adversely to the applicant on the prior application, (2) the prior determination was on *346 the merits, and (3) the ends of justice would not be served by reaching the merits of the subsequent application." Id., at 15. Thus, there appeared for the first time in our decisions the notion that a habeas court has "the duty " to reach the merits of a subsequent petition "if the ends of justice demand," id., at 18-19and it appeared for the perfectly good reason that the statute, as then written, imposed such a duty. And even as to that duty the Sanders Court added a "final qualification" that the Court today would do well to remember:
Yet when the new version of § 2244(b) was first construed, in Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S. 436 (1986), a plurality of the Court announced that it would "continue to rely on the *347 reference in Sanders to the `ends of justice,' " 477 U. S., at 451, and concluded that "the `ends of justice' require federal courts to entertain [successive] petitions only where the prisoner supplements his constitutional claim with a colorable showing of factual innocence." Id., at 454. That conclusion contains two complementary propositions. The first is that a habeas court may not reach the merits of a barred claim unless actual innocence is shown; this was the actual judgment of the opinion (one cannot say the holding, since the opinion was a mere plurality). See id., at 455 (stating that the District Court and Court of Appeals should have dismissed the successive petition because the petitioner's claim of innocence was meritless). The second is that a habeas court must hear a claim of actual innocence and reach the merits of the petition if the claim is sufficiently persuasive; this was the purest dictum. It is the Court's prerogative to adopt that dictum today, but to adopt it without analysis, as though it were binding precedent, will not do. The Kuhlmann plurality opinion lacks formal status as authority, and, as discussed below, no holding of this Court binds us to it. A decision to follow it must be justified by reason, not simply asserted by will.
The Kuhlmann plurality's concern about caprice is met as it is met for all decisions committed by law to the discretion of lower courtsby applying traditional "abuse-ofdiscretion" standards. A judge who dismisses a successive petition because he misconceives some question of law, because he detests the petitioner's religion, or because he would rather play golf, may be reversed. A judge who dismisses a successive petition because it is the petitioner's twenty-second, rather than his second, because its "only purpose is to vex, harass, or delay," Sanders, supra, at 18, or because the constitutional claims can be seen to be frivolous on the face of the papersfor any of the numerous considerations that have "a rational bearing on the propriety of the discharge sought," Salinger, 265 U. S., at 231 (emphasis added)may not be commanded to reach the merits because "the ends of justice" require. Here as elsewhere in the law, to say that a district judge may not abuse his discretion is merely to say that the action in question (dismissing a successive petition) may not be done without considering relevant factors and giving a "justifying reason," Foman v. Davis, 371 U. S. 178, 182 (1962). See also American Dredging Co. v. Miller, 510 U. S. 443, 455 (1994). It is a failure of logic, and an arrogation of authority, to "guide" that discretion by holding that what Congress authorized the district court to do may not be done at all.
The Court's assumption that the requirement imposed by the Kuhlmann plurality should be taken as law can find no support in our subsequent decisions. To be sure, some cases restate the supposed duty in the course of historical surveys of the area. See, e. g., McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. *349 467, 495 (1991) ("Kuhlmann .. . required federal courts to entertain successive petitions when a petitioner supplements a constitutional claim with a `colorable showing of factual innocence' "). But if we are to lavish upon the verbiage of our opinions the detailed attention more appropriately reserved for the statute itself, more of the cases (and some of the same cases) have described the miscarriage-ofjustice doctrine as a rule of permission rather than a rule of obligation. See, e. g., Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U. S. 333, 339 (1992) ("[Kuhlmann held that] the miscarriage of justice exception would allow successive claims to be heard"); McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 494 ("Federal courts retain the authority to issue the writ [in cases of fundamental miscarriage of justice]"); id., at 494-495 ("If petitioner cannot show cause, the failure to raise the claim in an earlier petition may nonetheless be excused if he or she can show that a fundamental miscarriage of justice would result from a failure to entertain the claim"); Murray v. Carrier, 477 U. S. 478, 496 (1986) ("[W]here a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent, a federal habeas court may grant the writ even in the absence of a showing of cause for the procedural default") (emphasis added in all quotations).
[12] The other alleged participants in the crime were convicted in earlier, separate trials. O'Neal, who did the stabbing, was sentenced to death, see State v. O'Neal, 718 S. W. 2d 498 (Mo. 1986); Stewart, who was apprehended by Flowers at the scene, was sentenced to 50 years' imprisonment without eligibility for probation or parole, see State v. Stewart, 714 S. W. 2d 724 (Mo. App. 1986).
[13] The denial of Schlup's motion for postconviction relief was affirmed by the Missouri Supreme Court on October 18, 1988. See Schlup v. State, 758 S. W. 2d 715 (Mo. 1988).
[19] The District Court focused primarily on the "suspect" nature of affidavits that are produced after a long delay, cf. Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 423-424 (1993) (O'Connor, J., concurring), and that come from inmates. The court concluded that the affidavits presented by Schlup, when considered against the positive identifications made by Flowers and Maylee, failed to constitute a sufficiently persuasive showing of actual innocence. App. 79.
[34] A "`successive petition' raises grounds identical to those raised and rejectedon the merits on a prior petition."Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S., at 444, n. 6 (plurality opinion).An "abusive petition" occurs "where a prisoner files a petition raising grounds that were available but not relied upon in a prior petition, or engages in other conduct that `disentitle[s] him to the relief he seeks.' " Ibid. , quoting Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1, 17-19 (1963).
[35] This Court has repeatedly noted the interplay between statutory language and judicially managed equitable considerations in the development of habeas corpus jurisprudence. For example, in McCleskey, the Court noted that the doctrine of abuse of the writ of habeas corpus "refers to a complex and evolving body of equitable principles informed and controlled by historical usage, statutory developments, and judicial decisions." 499 U. S., at 489. Similarly, in Wainwright v. Sykes, the Court noted its "historic willingness to overturn or modify its earlier views of the scope of the writ, even where the statutory language authorizing judicial action has remained unchanged." 433 U. S., at 81; see also Kuhlmann, 477 U. S., at 446-447 (explaining that the Court has both expanded and limited the scope of the writ); Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 633 (1993) ("We have filled the gaps of the habeas corpus statute with respect to other matters").
[36] Indeed, neither party called our attention to any decision from a Court of Appeals in which a petitioner had satisfied any definition of actual innocence. Though some such decisions exist, see, e. g., Henderson v. Sargent, 926 F. 2d 706, 713-714 (CA8), reaff'd in relevant part on rehearing, 939 F. 2d 586 (CA8 1991), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1050 (1992); Bliss v. Lockhart, 891 F. 2d 1335, 1342 (CA8 1987) (relying on Carrier `s actual innocence exception as an alternative ground of decision), independent research confirms that such decisions are rare.
[41] See, e. g., Lankford v. Idaho, 500 U. S. 110, 125 (1991); Clemons v. Mississippi, 494 U. S. 738, 750, n. 4 (1990); Booth v. Maryland, 482 U. S. 496, 509, n. 12 (1987); Solem v. Helm, 463 U. S. 277, 294 (1983); Gardner v. Florida, 430 U. S. 349, 357-358 (1977) (plurality opinion); Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U. S. 280, 303-304, 305 (1976) (plurality opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, JJ.).
[44] Nor do we believe that confining Sawyer `s more rigorous standard to claims involving eligibility for the sentence of death is anomalous. Our recognition of the significant difference between the injustice that results from an erroneous conviction and the injustice that results from an erroneous sentence is reflected in our decisions that permit reduced procedural protections at sentencing. See, e. g., Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241 (1949).
[45] See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 694 (1984); United States v. Bagley, 473 U. S. 667, 682 (1985) (Blackmun, J.);id. , at 685 (White, J., concurring).
[2] Senior Circuit Judge Heaney took issue only with the majority's conclusion that petitioner's trial counsel had rendered effective assistance at the penalty phase of trial. Cf. Schlup v. Armontrout, 941 F. 2d 631, 642 (1991) ("I disagree with the court's conclusion that Schlup was not prejudiced by his counsel's ineffectiveness during the penalty phase") (dissenting opinion).
[5] The Court explicitly rejected the contention that "cause need not be shown if actual prejudice is shown," even where the constitutional claims "call[ed]into question the reliability of an adjudication of legal guilt. " 477 U. S.,at 495 (emphasis added); see also Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 129 (1982).
[1] The claim that "the Court does not, and need not, decide whether the fundamental miscarriage of justice exception is a discretionary remedy," ante, at 333 (O'Connor, J.,concurring), is not in my view an accurate description of what the Court's opinion says. Of course the concurrence's merely making the claim causes it to be an accurate description of what the Court today holds, since the narrower ground taken by one of the Justices comprising a five-Justice majority becomes the law. Marks v. United States, 430 U. S. 188, 193 (1977).
[3] Even if they were wrong in that, it would not be correct to conclude that the judgment must necessarily be reversed. See ante, at 333-334 (O'Connor, J., concurring). Our habeas cases have not so held. See Wong Doo v. United States, 265 U. S. 239, 241 (1924) (affirming even though "the courts below erred in applying the inflexible doctrine of res judicata " to dismiss an abusive petition, because "it does not follow that the judgment should be reversed; for it plainly appears that the situation was one where, according to a sound judicial discretion, controlling weight must have been given to the prior refusal").
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