Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/521/320
Timestamp: 2013-05-19 16:35:13
Document Index: 213952208

Matched Legal Cases: ['§101', '§2244', '§2253', '§107', '§107', '§107', '§2263', '§2264', '§2254', '§2254', '§107', '§107', '§2261', '§107', '§2264', '§107', '§2264', '§107', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2254', '§2264', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2261', '§2264', '§2264', '§2264', '§2264', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2254', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254', '§2264', '§2254']

Aaron LINDH, Petitioner, v. James P. MURPHY, Warden. | Supreme Court | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Aaron LINDH, Petitioner, v. James P. MURPHY, Warden.
521 U.S. 320117 S.Ct. 2059138 L.Ed.2d 481 (521 U.S. 320117 S.Ct. 2059138 L.Ed.2d 481, 521 U.S. 320117 S.Ct. 2059138 L.Ed.2d 481)
[HTML] dissent, REHNQUIST, SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS
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.
" when a case implicates a federal statute enacted after the events in suit, the court's first task is to determine whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute's proper reach. If Congress has done so, of course, there is no need to resort to judicial default 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, 114 S.Ct., at 1505.
Wisconsin's reading, however, ignores context. The language quoted disposed of the question whether the practice of applying the law as it stands at the time of decision represented a retreat from the occasionally conflicting position that retroactivity in the application of new statutes is disfavored. The answer given was no, and the presumption against retroactivity was reaffirmed in the traditional rule requiring retroactive application to be supported by a clear statement. Landgraf thus referred to "express commands,'' "unambiguous directives,'' and the like where it sought to reaffirm that clear-statement rule, but only there. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, supra, at 263, 114 S.Ct., at 1495-1496 ("unambiguous directive'' is necessary to authorize "retroactive application''); id., at 264, 114 S.Ct., at 1496 (statutes "will not be construed to have retroactive effect unless their language requires this result'') (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); id., at 272-273, 114 S.Ct., at 1500 ("Requiring clear intent assures that Congress itself has affirmatively considered the potential unfairness of retroactive application''); id., at 286, 114 S.Ct., at 1508 (finding "no clear evidence of congressional intent'' to rebut the "presumption against statutory retroactivity''); id., at 286, 114 S.Ct., at 1508 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (agreeing that "a legislative enactment affecting substantive rights does not apply retroactively absent clear statement to the contrary'').
The statute reveals Congress's intent to apply the amendments to chapter 153 only to such cases as were filed after the statute's enactment (except where chapter 154 otherwise makes select provisions of chapter 153 applicable to pending cases). Title I of the Act stands more or less independent of the Act's other titles
in providing for the revision of federal habeas practice and does two main things. First, in §§101-106, it amends §2244 and §§2253-2255 of chapter 153 of Title 28 of the United States Code, governing all habeas corpus proceedings in the federal courts.
110 Stat. 1217-1221. 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.
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.
We read this provision of §107(c), expressly applying chapter 154 to all cases pending at enactment, as indicating implicitly that the amendments to chapter 153 were assumed and meant to apply to the general run of habeas cases only when those cases had been filed after the date of the Act. The significance of this provision for application to pending cases becomes apparent when one realizes that when chapter 154 is applicable, it will have substantive as well as purely procedural effects. If chapter 154 were merely procedural in a strict sense (say, setting deadlines for filing and disposition, see 28 U.S.C.A. §§2263, 2266 (Supp.1997); 110 Stat. 1223, 1224-1226), the natural expectation would be that it would apply to pending cases. Landgraf, 511 U.S., at 275, 114 S.Ct., at 1502 (noting that procedural changes "may often be applied in suits arising before their enactment without raising concerns about retroactivity''). But chapter 154 does more, for in its revisions of prior law to change standards of proof and persuasion in a way favorable to a state, the statute goes beyond "mere'' procedure to affect substantive entitlement to relief. See 28 U.S.C.A. §2264(b) (Supp.1997), 110 Stat. 1223 (incorporating revised legal standard of new §2254(d)). Landgraf did not speak to the rules for determining the temporal reach of such a statute (having no need to do so). While the statute might not have a true retroactive effect, neither was it clearly "procedural'' so as to fall within the Court's express (albeit qualified) approval of applying such statutes to pending cases. Since Landgraf was the Court's latest word on the subject when the Act was passed, Congress could have taken the opinion's cautious statement about procedural statutes and its silence about the kind of provision exemplified by the new §2254(d) as counseling the wisdom of being explicit if it wanted such a provision to be applied to cases already pending. While the terms of §107(c) may not amount to the clear statement required for a mandate to apply a statute in the disfavored retroactive way,
Nothing, indeed, but a different intent explains the different treatment. This might not be so if, for example, the two chapters had evolved separately in the congressional process, only to be passed together at the last minute, after chapter 154 had already acquired the mandate to apply it to pending cases. Under those circumstances, there might have been a real possibility that Congress would have intended the same rule of application for each chapter, but in the rough-and-tumble no one had thought of being careful about chapter 153, whereas someone else happened to think of inserting a 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,
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.
The strength of the implication is not diminished by the one competing explanation suggested, see Brief of Respondent 11-12, which goes as follows. Chapter 154 provides for expedited filing and adjudication of habeas 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 " this chapter is applicable if a State establishes . . . a mechanism for the appointment, compensation, and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel in State post-conviction 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.
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 " following review subject to subsections (a), (d), and (e) of §2254, the court should 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.
Leaving aside the reference to §2254(a) for a moment, why would Congress have provided specifically in §2264(b) that chapter 154 determinations shall be made subject to §§2254(d) and (e), given the fact that the latter are part of chapter 153 and thus independently apply to habeas generally? One argument is that the answer lies in §2264(a), which (in expedited capital cases) specially provides an exhaustion requirement (subject to three exceptions), restricting federal habeas claims to those "raised and decided on the merits in the State courts . . . '' 110 Stat. 1223. See 96 F.3d, at 862-863. The argument assumes (and we will assume for the sake of the argument) that in expedited capital cases, this provision of §2264(a) supersedes the requirements for exhaustion of State remedies imposed as a general matter by §§2254(b) and (c).
The argument then goes 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).
This analysis is itself consistent, in turn, with Congress's failure in §2264(b) to make any express provision for applying §§2254(f), (g), (h), or (i). Subsections (f) and (g) deal with producing state court evidentiary records and their admissibility as evidence. Congress would obviously have wanted these provisions to apply in chapter 154 pending cases, but because they were old provisions, which had already attached to "pending'' capital habeas cases (only their letter designations had been amended), Congress had no need to make any special provision for their application to pending capital habeas cases that might immediately or later turn out to be covered by chapter 154. Subsections (h) and (i), however, are new; if Congress wanted them to apply to chapter 154 cases from the start it would on our hypotheses have had to make the same special provision that §2264(b) 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 post-conviction 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.
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,
and because of Congress's 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.
The Court finds additional support for its inference in the new 28 U.S.C.A. §2264(b) (Supp.1997), which it believes "tends to confirm,'' ante, at __, its analysis. Section 2264 is part of Chapter 154 and forbids (subject to narrow exceptions) federal district courts from considering claims raised by state capital defendants unless those claims were first raised and decided on the merits in state court. Section 2264(b) provides, " following 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.
Petitioner protests that to read §2264(a) as supplanting §§2254(b) and (c) would produce "outlandish'' results, Brief for Petitioner 26, a conclusion which the Court finds plausible, ante, at __-__, and n. 7 (although it ultimately assumes otherwise). The result would have to be "outlandish,'' indeed, before a court should refuse to apply the language chosen by Congress, but no such result would obtain here. Petitioner and the Court both fail to appreciate the different litigating incentives facing capital and noncapital defendants. Noncapital defendants, serving criminal sentences in prison, file habeas petitions seeking to be released, presumably as soon as possible. They have no incentive to delay. In such circumstances, §§2254(b) and (c) quite reasonably require that their habeas claims be filed first in state courts, so that the state judicial apparatus may have the first opportunity to address those claims. In contrast, capital defendants, facing impending execution, seek to avoid being executed. Their incentive, therefore, is to utilize every means possible to delay the carrying out of their sentence. It is, therefore, not at all "outlandish'' for Congress to have concluded that in such circumstances §§2254(b) and (c) exhaustion would needlessly prolong capital proceedings and that §2264(a)'s requirement that a claim have been raised and decided on the merits in state court was a sufficient protection of States' interests in exhaustion.
Finally, we have regularly applied statutes ousting jurisdiction to pending litigation.
Landgraf, supra, at 274, 114 S.Ct., at 1501-1502; see also Bruner v. United States, 343 U.S. 112, 116-117, and n. 8, 72 S.Ct. 581, 584 and n. 8, 96 L.Ed. 786 (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, 36 S.Ct. 202, 203, 60 L.Ed. 409 (1916); Sherman v. Grinnell, 123 U.S. 679, 680, 8 S.Ct. 260, 261, 31 L.Ed. 278 (1887); Assessors v. Osbornes, 9 Wall. 567, 575, 19 L.Ed. 748 (1869); Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514, 19 L.Ed. 264 (1868); Insurance Co. v. Ritchie, 5 Wall. 541, 544-545, 18 L.Ed. 540 (1866). 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, 114 S.Ct., at 1502 (quoting Republic Nat. Bank of Miami v. United States, 506 U.S. 80, 100, 113 S.Ct. 554, 565, 121 L.Ed.2d 474 (1992) (Thomas, J., concurring)); see also 511 U.S., at 269, 114 S.Ct., at 1499, (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.
There is a good argument that §2254(d) is itself jurisdictional. See Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 460, 73 S.Ct. 397, 408-409, 97 L.Ed. 469 (1953) ("Jurisdiction over applications for federal habeas corpus is controlled by statute''); Sumner v. Mata, 449 U.S. 539, 548, n. 2, 101 S.Ct. 764, 770 n. 2, 66 L.Ed.2d 722 (1981) ("The present codification of the federal habeas statute is the successor to "the first congressional grant of jurisdiction to the federal courts,' and the 1966 amendments embodied in §2254(d) now codified, as amended by the AEDPA, at §2254(e) were intended by Congress as limitations on the exercise of that jurisdiction'' (quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 485, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 1833-1834, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973))); cf. Arkansas v. Farm Credit Servs. of Central Ark., 520 U.S. ----, ----, 117 S.Ct. 1776, 1778, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (1997) (explaining that the Tax Injunction Act-which has operative language similar to §2254(d) ("The district courts shall not enjoin . . . '')-is "first and foremost a vehicle to limit drastically federal district court jurisdiction to interfere with so important a local concern as the collection of taxes'' (internal quotations omitted)). But even if it is not jurisdictional, it shares the most salient characteristic of jurisdictional statutes: its commands are addressed to courts rather than to individuals. Section 2254(d) does not address criminal defendants, or even state prosecutors; it prescribes or proscribes no private conduct. Instead, it is addressed directly to federal courts, providing, " an application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted . . . unless . . . '' (emphasis added).
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.
There are reasons why the position that §2264(a) replaces rather than complements §§2254(b) and (c) is open to doubt: Lindh argues with some force that to read §2264(a) as replacing the exhaustion requirement of §§2254(b) and (c) would mean that in important classes of cases (those in the categories of three §2264(a) exceptions), the State would not be able to insist on exhaustion in the state courts. In cases raising claims of newly discovered evidence, for example, the consequence could be that the State could not prevent the prisoner from going directly to federal court and evading §2254(e)'s presumption of correctness of state court factual findings as well as §2254(d)'s new, highly deferential standard for evaluating state court rulings. It is true that a State might be perfectly content with the prisoner's choice to go straight to federal court in some cases, but the State has been free to waive exhaustion to get that result. The State has not explained why Congress would have wanted to deprive the States of the §2254 exhaustion tools in chapter 154 cases, and we are hard-pressed to come up with a reason, especially considering the Act's apparent general purpose to enhance the States' capacities to control their own adjudications. It would appear that the State's reading of §2264(a) would also eliminate from chapter 154 cases the provisions of §2254 that define the exhaustion requirement explicitly as requiring a claim to be raised by any and every available procedure in the State, 28 U.S.C. 2254(c), that newly authorize federal courts to deny unexhausted claims on the merits, 28 U.S.C. 2254(b)(2), and that newly require a state's waiver of exhaustion to be shown to be express, 28 U.S.C. 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).