Opinion ID: 219133
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Definition of Clearly Erroneous

Text: The foregoing consideration aside, as the majority recognizes, Majority Op. at 1049, 1050, under the law of the case doctrine, to the extent here relevant, a prior decision should be followed unless it was clearly erroneous and its enforcement would work a manifest injustice. Hegler v. Borg, 50 F.3d 1472, 1475 (9th Cir.1995); see also Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983) (Under law of the case doctrine, as now most commonly understood, it is not improper for a court to depart from a prior holding if convinced that it is clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.). The phrase clearly erroneous suggests something more than simple error. As the Court of Appeals for Seventh Circuit put it: [U]nder the clearly-erroneous standard, we cannot meddle with the prior decision of this or a lower court simply because we have doubts about its wisdom or think we would have reached a different result. To be clearly erroneous, a decision must strike us as more than just maybe or probably wrong; it must, as one member of this court recently stated during oral argument, strike us as wrong with the force of a five-week-old, unrefrigerated dead fish. Parts and Elec. Motors, Inc. v. Sterling Elec., Inc., 866 F.2d 228, 233 (7th Cir. 1988). In sum, to be clearly erroneous, the prior panel's decision must be dead wrong. Id. This stringent standard rests on good sense and the desire to protect both court and parties against the burdens of repeated reargument by indefatigable diehards. 18B CHARLES A. WRIGHT ET AL., FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 4478 (2d ed. 2002). The prior holding of two district court judges, and three judges of the Ninth Circuit that 28 U.S.C. § 2255 was not an inadequate or ineffective remedy so as to allow Alaimalo to proceed under § 2241, Alaimalo v. United States, 317 Fed.Appx. 619, 620 (9th Cir.2008), was not clearly erroneous. Indeed, although we need not go that far to decide this case, the prior holdings were not error at all. Specifically, a motion for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2241 may be entertained notwithstanding the petitioner's fail[ure] to apply for relief, by motion [pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255], to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief [if] the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e). Alaimalo did initially file a petition for relief to the court which sentenced him, although he did not challenge his conviction on the counts of importation on the ground on which Cabaccang ultimately prevailed. Nor, if he had raised the issue, could he have obtained relief from the district court because Ninth Circuit law had not changed since he unsuccessfully raised the issue on direct appeal. Cf. Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 341-42, 94 S.Ct. 2298, 41 L.Ed.2d 109 (1974) (where Court of Appeals decision changed the law since petitioner's trial and appeal, law of the case doctrine did not bar a new hearing on a legal issue previously determined against him). Nevertheless, it is not so clear, as the majority suggests, that this circumstance rendered the remedy by motion, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention. First, nothing would have precluded Alaimalo from seeking a change in applicable Ninth Circuit law. Indeed, at the time he filed his first petition, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit had already ruled in an opinion that would be relied upon in Cabaccang, that a defendant's conduct in transporting drugs from one location within the United States to another, despite traveling over international waters, did not constitute importation within the meaning of 21 U.S.C. § 952(a). See United States v. Ramirez-Ferrer, 82 F.3d 1131, 1144 (1st Cir.1996) ( en banc ). While the district court could not have granted Alaimalo's petition, because it was without power to alter prior Ninth Circuit precedent or the law of the case established on direct appeal, see Davis, 417 U.S. at 341-42, 94 S.Ct. 2298, the Ninth Circuit could have granted such relief. Indeed, Alaimalo's appeal was working its way through the Ninth Circuit, almost in lockstep with Cabaccang, and Cabaccang succeeded. Under these circumstances, relief by motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 was no more inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of Alaimalo's detention than a direct appeal was to test the identical challenge raised by Cabaccang. Significantly, in analogous circumstances, the Supreme Court has held that a procedural forfeiture occasioned by the failure of a state prisoner to make a timely objection was not excused by the alleged futility of such a timely objection. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 130, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982). As Justice O'Connor wrote for the Supreme Court: If a defendant perceives a constitutional claim and believes it may find favor in the federal courts, he may not bypass the state courts simply because he thinks they will be unsympathetic to the claim. Even a state court that has previously rejected a constitutional argument may decide, upon reflection, that the contention is valid. Id. (footnote omitted); see also Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 623, 118 S.Ct. 1604, 140 L.Ed.2d 828 (1998) (As we clearly stated in Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S. 107, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982), futility cannot constitute cause if it means simply that a claim was unacceptable to that particular court at that particular time.) (internal quotation marks and parallel citation omitted). The change of law that Justice O'Connor suggested was possible actually occurred here during the pendency of Alaimalo's appeal, at the behest of another defendant who raised the same claim. Indeed, it would not be farfetched to suggest that Alaimalo might have prevailed had he first raised the issue on appeal from the denial of his § 2255 motion and moved to stay his appeal, after it became apparent that we were prepared to consider the Cabaccang claim en banc. While we generally do not consider claims raised for the first time on appeal, an application to add the Cabaccang claim would have come within the criteria we have adopted for invoking our discretion to review such a claim, including, inter alia, when a new issue arises while appeal is pending because of a change in the law. . . . Cold Mountain v. Garber, 375 F.3d 884, 891 (9th Cir.2004) (O'Scannlain, J.) (quoting Bolker v. Comm'r, 760 F.2d 1039, 1042 (9th Cir. 1985)). In sum, it was hardly clear error to hold that Alaimalo could have raised his claim in a proceeding pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Indeed, the district court judges who dismissed Alaimalo's petitions pursuant to § 2241 expressly relied on the unique facts discussed above to demonstrate that the remedy provided by § 2255 was adequate and effective to test Alaimalo's claim. See Alaimalo v. Shultz, No. 05-cv-300 (E.D.Cal. Sept. 29, 2005); Alaimalo v. United States, No. 06-cv-6872 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 25, 2007). The three judges of the Ninth Circuit presumably did the same when they affirmed the denial of the writ of habeas corpus. See Alaimalo v. United States, 317 Fed.Appx. 619 (9th Cir.2008). Moreover, even in the absence of such unique circumstances, the inadequacy of the remedy afforded by § 2255 is not as clear cut as the majority suggests. First, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits have held that the so-called escape-hatch clause or savings clause of 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e) applies to a claim that was or could have been brought pursuant to § 2255 only when: 1) that claim is based on a retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision; 2) the holding of that Supreme Court decision establishes the petitioner was convicted for a nonexistent offense; and, 3) circuit law squarely foreclosed such a claim at the time it otherwise should have been raised in the petitioner's trial, appeal, or first § 2255 motion. Wofford v. Scott, 177 F.3d 1236, 1244 (11th Cir.1999); accord Reyes-Requena v. United States, 243 F.3d 893, 904 (5th Cir.2001) (following Wofford ); In re Davenport, 147 F.3d 605, 611 (7th Cir.1998). Moreover, in Love v. Menifee, 333 F.3d 69, 73 (2d Cir. 2003), the Second Circuit held that Section 2255 is `inadequate or ineffective,' however, only when a `failure to allow for collateral review would raise serious constitutional questions' . . . (quoting Triestman v. United States, 124 F.3d 361, 377 (2d Cir.1997)). These extraordinary limitations underscore the fact that [t]he savings clause and habeas corpus writs . . . exist in a delicate balance. Reyes-Requena, 243 F.3d at 901 n. 19. Because [s]ection 2255 is the primary collateral relief mechanism for federal prisoners, caselaw is clear that the savings clause cannot create a detour around § 2255. Id.; see also Moore v. Reno, 185 F.3d 1054, 1055 (9th Cir.1999) (per curiam) (the dismissal of a subsequent § 2255 motion pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b) does not render federal habeas relief an ineffective or inadequate remedy.). So, for example, § 2255(f) contains a one-year statute of limitation and § 2255(h) provides that a second or successive motion can only be filed if it is based on newly discovered evidence that would have resulted in a not guilty verdict or if it is based on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable. Obviously, a prisoner's inability to comply with these conditions does not render the remedy pursuant to § 2255 inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention. See Love, 333 F.3d at 73 (Section 2255 is not inadequate or ineffective simply because its gatekeeping provisions bar review of a petitioner's claim.). Otherwise, the substantive and procedural barriers contained in § 2255 would be rendered meaningless and Congress would have accomplished nothing at all in its attemptsthrough statutes like AEDPAto place limits on federal collateral review. Triestman v. United States, 124 F.3d 361, 376 (2nd Cir. 1997) (Calabresi, J.). Another reason for the extremely narrow construction of the savings clause is that it was originally intended to encompass only practical difficulties that a petitioner might have encountered in complying with the directive in § 2255 that a petition must be filed in the district court which imposed the sentence. See United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205, 219, 72 S.Ct. 263, 96 L.Ed. 232 (1952). Nevertheless, while [t]he question is not free from doubt, after an exhaustive analysis of the legislative history, the Eleventh Circuit concluded that the savings clause had somehow morphed into a vehicle that is concerned with more than the practical difficulties. Wofford, 177 F.3d at 1241. This conclusion represents the prevailing view of the savings clause. In order to give the language of the savings clause some effect, and yet avoid a construction of the savings clause that would render meaningless the constraints placed upon the issuance of a § 2255 writ, it has generally been construed to permit the filing of a habeas corpus petition pursuant to § 2241 only when a change in statutory construction adopted, and made retroactive, by the Supreme Court established that the petitioner had been found guilty of what turned out to be a non-existent offense. See e.g., In re Davenport, 147 F.3d 605, 611 (7th Cir.1998). As the Seventh Circuit explained, [b]ecause Congress may have overlooked the possibility that new and retroactive statutory decisions [by the Supreme Court] could support collateral review, we held in Davenport that for this small class of situations § 2255 is `inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [the] detention.' Taylor v. Gilkey, 314 F.3d 832, 835 (7th Cir. 2002) (alteration in original) (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2255(e)). Nevertheless, in granting Alaimalo relief pursuant to the savings clause of § 2255(e), the majority ignores altogether the carefully crafted limitations on the availability of habeas corpus relief. Indeed, a detailed analysis of the narrow scope of the savings clause is not to be found in the cases cited by the majority, see Majority Op. at 1046-47, only because they held that the petitioners were not otherwise entitled to relief pursuant to the savings clause. See Stephens v. Herrera, 464 F.3d 895 (9th Cir.2006); Ivy v. Pontesso, 328 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir.2003); Lorentsen v. Hood, 223 F.3d 950 (9th Cir.2000). The present case is the first Ninth Circuit case to grant relief pursuant to the savings clause of § 2255(e), and it does so in a case where the petitioner is unable to meet the stringent conditions that other circuits have adopted. In so doing, it needlessly creates a clear conflict among the circuits in a case in which the relief it orders will give petitioner nothing.