Opinion ID: 213109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Second-in-Time Motions Under AEDPA

Text: Buenrostro's motion is a § 2255 motion, not a Rule 60(b) motion. To file it, Buenrostro needs our permission. 28 U.S.C. § 2255(h). We turn, therefore, to whether § 2255(h) allows us to certify his motion. Section 2255(h) provides: A second or successive motion must be certified . . . by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain (1) newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found the movant guilty of the offense; or (2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable. The plain text of § 2255(h) clearly prevents Buenrostro from filing this motion. His new claim neither bears on his innocence of the underlying crime nor turns on a new rule of constitutional law. If we interpret § 2255(h) according to its plain meaning, we could not allow Buenrostro's new motion to go forward. Although the Supreme Court has not decided a post-AEDPA case concerning the meaning of second or successive under § 2255(h) and Congress did not define that term, Buenrostro relies on the Supreme Court's decisions under § 2244(b)(2) to advocate for an exception in his case. Section 2244(b)(2) resembles § 2255(h). [2] It limits state prisoners from bringing newly discovered claims in a second or successive federal habeas corpus application unless such claims either clearly and convincingly prove the prisoner's innocence or rely on a new rule of constitutional law. We assume, without deciding, that the Court's interpretation of second or successive for purposes of § 2244(b)(2) applies to § 2255(h). Even if it does, we cannot certify Buenrostro's motion. In Magwood v. Patterson, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 2788, 2799, 177 L.Ed.2d 592 (2010), seven justices agreed that second or successive is a habeas `term of art' that incorporates the pre-AEDPA abuse-of-the-writ doctrine. Id. at 2804 (Kennedy, J., dissenting); id. at 2797 (majority op.); see also id. at 2804 (Kennedy, J, dissenting) (explaining that, under the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine, a petitioner abused the writ by raising a claim in a subsequent petition that he could have raised in the first, regardless of whether the failure to raise it earlier stemmed from a deliberate choice (internal quotation marks omitted)). That statement reaffirms every federal appellate court's repeated recognition that the term second or successive is not to be taken literally but is informed by the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine. United States v. Lopez, 577 F.3d 1053, 1063 n. 8 (9th Cir.2009), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 1718, 176 L.Ed.2d 200 (2010). Buenrostro urges us to eschew the literal interpretation of § 2255(h) and to apply the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine here. He relies principally on two Supreme Court cases that examined second-in-time federal habeas applications raising claims that had not ripened for adjudication at the time the first petition was litigated. Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 947, 127 S.Ct. 2842, 168 L.Ed.2d 662 (2007) (involving claims under Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 106 S.Ct. 2595, 91 L.Ed.2d 335 (1986) (holding that an incompetent person may not be executed)); Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal, 523 U.S. 637, 118 S.Ct. 1618, 140 L.Ed.2d 849 (1998) (same). In Martinez-Villareal, 523 U.S. at 644-45, 118 S.Ct. 1618, the petitioner presented a Ford claim in his first federal habeas petition, which the court dismissed as unripe. The rest of his claims were adjudicated. When the petitioner sought to refile his Ford claim after his execution date was set, the Court said it could not be second or successive, because [t]here was only one application for habeas relief, and the District Court ruled (or should have ruled) on each claim at the time it became ripe. 523 U.S. at 643, 118 S.Ct. 1618. In Panetti, 551 U.S. at 937, 127 S.Ct. 2842, the petitioner filed a federal habeas petition challenging his conviction but did not state a Ford claim. The district court denied his petition on its merits. Id. After the state scheduled his execution date, the petitioner filed a second habeas petition alleging, for the first time, that he was incompetent to be executed. Id. at 938, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether that petition constituted an improper second or successive habeas application under § 2244(b). Id. The Court held that the petition was not second or successive within the meaning of § 2244(b) because Congress did not intend the provisions of AEDPA addressing `second or successive' petitions to govern a filing in the unusual posture presented here: a § 2254 application raising a Ford -based incompetency claim filed as soon as that claim is ripe. Id. at 945, 127 S.Ct. 2842. The Court looked at the purposes underlying AEDPA and reasoned that [a]n empty formality requiring prisoners to file unripe Ford claims neither respects the limited legal resources available to the States nor encourages the exhaustion of state remedies. Id. at 946, 127 S.Ct. 2842. Accordingly, the Court declined to construe AEDPA, which Congress implemented to further the principles of comity, finality, and federalism, in a manner that would require unripe (and, often, factually unsupported) claims to be raised as a mere formality, to the benefit of no party. Id. at 947, 127 S.Ct. 2842. Martinez and Panetti do not apply only to Ford claims. Prisoners may file second-in-time petitions based on events that do not occur until a first petition is concluded. A prisoner whose conviction and sentence were tested long ago may still file petitions relating to denial of parole, revocation of a suspended sentence, and the like because such claims were not ripe for adjudication at the conclusion of the prisoner's first federal habeas proceeding. Hill v. Alaska, 297 F.3d 895, 898-99 (9th Cir.2002), cited in Magwood, 130 S.Ct. at 2805; see also Benchoff v. Colleran, 404 F.3d 812, 817 (3d Cir.2005); Medberry v. Crosby, 351 F.3d 1049, 1062 (11th Cir.2003); James v. Walsh, 308 F.3d 162, 168 (2d Cir.2002); Crouch v. Norris, 251 F.3d 720, 725 (8th Cir.2001); In re Cain, 137 F.3d 234, 235 (5th Cir.1998) (order); Walker v. Roth, 133 F.3d 454, 455 (7th Cir.1997) (per curiam). Buenrostro asks us to broaden the rule announced in Martinez-Villareal and Panetti so that it permits claims that were ripe at the conclusion of a first § 2255 proceeding but were not discovered until afterward. Buenrostro relies heavily on our opinion in Lopez to support his view that § 2255(h) allows us to certify such claims. In Lopez, 577 F.3d at 1062-66, we examined Panetti to decide whether § 2255(h) barred a second-in-time § 2255 motion based on a newly discovered Brady [3] claim. We acknowledged that Panetti 's reasoning does not necessarily confine its reach solely to Ford claims. Id. at 1063. And we understood that Panetti cautioned us not to interpret AEDPA in a way that would foreclose any federal review of a constitutional claim . . . absent a clear indication that Congress intended that result. Id. We recognized, however, two reasons to think that Congress clearly intended to foreclose review of some constitutional claims discovered after the completion of a prisoner's § 2255 proceeding. First, § 2255(h)(1) contains an express statutory standard for dealing with `second or successive' claims based on `newly discovered evidence.' Id. at 1065. Second, even a literal reading § 2255(h) does not bar all newly discovered, second-in-time Brady claims. Section 2255(h)(1) allows us to certify such claims when they prove by clear and convincing evidence a prisoner's innocence. Id. In the end, we did not decide whether § 2255(h) barred the movant's newly discovered Brady claim because he could not establish prejudice even under the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine. Id. at 1066. Buenrostro's ineffective assistance of counsel claim does not suffer from the same infirmity as the Brady claim in Lopez. We do not doubt that, under the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine, the federal courts could adjudicate his claim. But we think that the words of § 2255(h) indicate Congress' clear intent to prohibit us from certifying second-in-time claims, ripe at the time of a prisoner's first § 2255 proceeding but not discovered until afterward, unless such claims either rely on a new, retroactive rule of constitutional law or clearly and convincingly prove the prisoner's innocence. As we said in Lopez, AEDPA codif[ied] the judicially established principles reflected in the abuse-of-the-writ doctrine and further restrict[ed] the availability of relief to habeas petitioners. Id. at 1060-61 (emphasis added). Buenrostro had a ripe ineffective assistance of counsel claim that he could have brought in his first § 2255 motion. He says that he had no reason to know he could bring such a claim, but that is not determinative to his right to relief. His second § 2255 motion is second or successive. As a modified res judicata rule, Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 664, 116 S.Ct. 2333, 135 L.Ed.2d 827 (1996), the second or successive bar marks the end point of litigation even where compelling new evidence of a constitutional violation is discovered, § 2255(h)(1). The only prisoner who will not reach that point is the one who obtains new evidence that could clearly and convincingly prove his innocence or who has the benefit of a new, retroactive rule of constitutional law. Buenrostro is not that prisoner. His motion is barred. AFFIRMED.