Opinion ID: 736909
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Appeal-Limiting Provision to Pending Section 2255 Motions

Text: 13 The movants do not dispute that the AEDPA limits the scope of an appeal from the denial of a section 2255 motion to constitutional claims. On the contrary, their recognition of the limiting effect of the AEDPA on the scope of such appeals is the basis for their contention that the Act may not be validly applied to a section 2255 motion filed before the effective date of the Act. In their view, the narrowing of appellate jurisdiction by eliminating appeals based on such section 2255 grounds as jurisdictional error or error [that] resulted in a complete miscarriage of justice or in a proceeding inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of fair procedure, Femia v. United States, 47 F.3d 519, 525 (2d Cir.1995) (citations and quotations omitted), is the reason why this aspect of the AEDPA may not be given retrospective application. 14 We have previously encountered contentions that provisions of the AEDPA may not be given retrospective application, and have endeavored to resolve such claims in light of the Supreme Court's latest explication of its retroactivity jurisprudence in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994). The Court there stated that generally procedural changes may be applied to pending cases without imposing the sort of genuinely retroactive effect that can be imposed, if at all, only if Congress has expressly so provided. Id. at 277, 114 S.Ct. at 1503. 15 In conformity with Landgraf, we have applied the AEDPA's COA requirement to a section 2254 petition filed before the Act's effective date, Reyes v. Keane, 90 F.3d 676, 679-80 (2d Cir.1996), but have not applied the AEDPA's one-year statute of limitations to a section 2254 petition as to which the one-year period had expired before the effective date of the Act, id. at 678-79, or the AEDPA's more deferential standard for assessing state court consideration of constitutional claims to a denial of competent counsel occurring prior to the effective date of the Act, Boria v. Keane, 90 F.3d 36, 37 (2d Cir.1996) (opinion on rehearing). 16 We agree with the Eleventh Circuit that application of whatever limiting effect the AEDPA may have on the scope of appeals of denials of section 2255 motions results in the sort of procedural change that does not encounter retroactivity objections. See Hunter v. United States, 101 F.3d 1565 (11th Cir.1996) (in banc). The movants plainly had no settled expectation of an appeal without the requirement of a COA either at the time they committed their crimes or at the time they suffered the denial of rights of which they now seek to complain. Id. at 1571-73; see Orozco, 103 F.3d at 392. 2 17 Accordingly, the motion to dispense with a COA must be denied. That ruling obliges us to consider the further issue as to whether a district court is the appropriate court to issue a COA. 18