Opinion ID: 198488
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Second or Successive Petition Under 2255

Text: We begin by considering Barrett's claim under 2255. It is clear that this provision is facially applicable to his petition: he challenges the validity of his conviction; he is in custody; his request for relief was made to the federal court that sentenced him; and he himself invoked 2255 as a basis for jurisdiction. See Valona, 138 F.3d at 694-95. The issue becomes how his petition is affected by the second or successive requirements applicable to 2255 petitions. Barrett makes three general arguments. He says that this is really a first petition.Even if not technically a first petition, he says it should be treated as one because he attempted to raise the Jencks Act claim in his first petition. He also suggests that application of the second or successive requirements would be impermissibly retroactive and would raise constitutional problems. Meaning of Second or Successive and the Abuse of the Writ Doctrine As Barrett points out, AEDPA leaves the phrase second or successive undefined. See Galtieri v. United States, 128 F.3d 33, 35 (2d Cir. 1997) ([W]hen is a petition 'second or successive' within the meaning of . . . [AEDPA?] Unfortunately, as with many legal questions, the answer is: 'It depends.'). However, there is significant guidance as to whether Barrett's most recent petition falls within the scope of AEDPA's second or successive restrictions. As an initial matter, courts construing the phrase have generally applied pre-AEDPA abuse of the writ decisions. See Esposito v. United States, 135 F.3d 111, 113 (2d Cir. 1997) (per curiam); Pratt, 129 F.3d at 60; Reeves v. Little, 120 F.3d 1136, 1138 (10th Cir. 1997) (per curiam). As was true pre-AEDPA under the abuse of the writ doctrine, a numerically second petition is not 'second or successive' if it attacks a different criminal judgment or if the earlier petition terminated without a judgment on the merits. Pratt, 129 F.3d at 60; see also Esposito, 135 F.3d at 113. Further definition is given in a series of post-AEDPA decisions in this court and other courts of appeals. A petition is not second or successive when a state petitioner whose first petition was dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies brings a new petition based on exhausted claims. See Carlson v. Pitcher, 137 F.3d 416, 420 (6th Cir. 1998) ([T]he very sound rationales supporting this result are not altered by the additional consideration that the second-in-time petition may contain new habeas claims not presented in the first petition.); McWilliams v. Colorado, 121 F.3d 573, 575 (10th Cir. 1997); In re Gasery, 116 F.3d 1051, 1052 (5th Cir. 1997) (per curiam); Christy v. Horn, 115 F.3d 201, 208 (3d Cir. 1997) (holding that the concerns of finality and comity underlying the abuse of the writ doctrine are not implicated when a petition is filed after a prior petition is dismissed for lack of exhaustion); In re Turner, 101 F.3d 1323, 1323 (9th Cir. 1997) (per curiam) (noting that petitioner is raising the same claims that he raised in the prior petition that was dismissed for lack of exhaustion); Dickinson v. Maine, 101 F.3d 791, 791 (1st Cir. 1996) (per curiam); Camarano v. Irvin, 98 F.3d 44, 46 (2d Cir. 1996) (per curiam) ([A]pplication of the gatekeeping provisions to deny a resubmitted petition in cases such as this would effectively preclude any federal habeas review and thus, would conflict with the doctrine of writ abuse, as understood both before and after Felker . . . . To foreclose further habeas review in such cases would not curb abuses of the writ, but rather would bar federal habeas review altogether.); cf. Denton v. Norris, 104 F.3d 166, 167 n.2 (8th Cir. 1997) (remarking that [t]here may be circumstances in which the statute should not be literally and woodenly applied). These cases do not directly apply to Barrett, who was convicted of a federal crime. Other decisions have created an exception for at least three categories of cases: (1) where the earlier petition was rejected for failure to pay the filing fee or for mistakes in form, see O'Connor v. United States, 133 F.3d 548, 550 (7th Cir. 1998); Benton v. Washington, 106 F.3d 162, 164-65 (7th Cir. 1996); (2) where the earlier petition was labeled a 2255 petition but actually was a 2241 petition challenging the execution rather than the validity of the sentence, see Chambers v. United States, 106 F.3d 472, 474-75 (2d Cir. 1997); and (3) where the second petition challenges parts of the judgment that arose as the result of the success of an earlier petition, see, e.g., In re Taylor, 171 F.3d 185, 187-88 (4th Cir. 1999); Esposito, 135 F.3d at 113; Pratt, 129 F.3d at 61-62; Walker v. Roth, 133 F.3d 454, 455 & n.1 (7th Cir. 1997) (per curiam); cf., e.g., Shepeck v. United States, 150 F.3d 800, 801 (7th Cir. 1998) (per curiam). These categories also do not apply to Barrett. Barrett rather tries to build on the Supreme Court's recent interpretation of the phrase second or successive in Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal, 118 S. Ct. 1618 (1998). In Stewart, the Supreme Court held that a petition was not second or successive within the meaning of the AEDPA state habeas provisions when the claim at issue had been raised in a previous petition but dismissed by the district court as premature and unripe (although the district court had resolved the ripe claims presented in the first petition on their merits). [The most recent petition] may have been the second time that respondent had asked the federal courts to provide relief on his Ford claim, but this does not mean that there were two separate applications, the second of which was necessarily subject to [the second or successive provision]. There 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. Respondent was entitled to an adjudication of all of the claims presented in his earlier, undoubtedly reviewable, application for federal habeas relief. Id. at 1621. The Supreme Court compared the case before it to the cases involving dismissals for nonexhaustion, and explained that [t]o hold otherwise would mean that a dismissal of a first habeas petition for technical procedural reasons would bar the prisoner from ever obtaining federal habeas review. Id. at 1622 (noting that the Ford claim could not be decided at the time it was first presented because petitioner's execution was not imminent). The rationale of the Stewart decision does not help Barrett, but reinforces that his claim does not fall within an exception to the second or successive rule. Part of the Stewart Court's rationale for finding that the previously premature claims were not second or successive was that those claims would not be barred under any form of res judicata. Id. The core of the AEDPA restrictions on second or successive 2255 petitions is related to the longstanding judicial and statutory restrictions embodied in the form of res judicata known as the abuse of the writ doctrine.As the Supreme Court noted in Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651 (1996), as to similar restrictions on 2254 petitions, [t]he new restrictions on successive petitions constitute a modified res judicata rule, a restraint on what is called in habeas corpus practice 'abuse of the writ.' Id. at 664; see also O'Connor, 133 F.3d at 550 (stating that the idea . . . is that a prisoner is entitled to one, but only one, full and fair opportunity to wage a collateral attack). Cases in which numerically second petitions have not been treated as second or successive can be understood as describing factual scenarios in which the application of a modified res judicata rule would not make sense. See Vancleave v. Norris, 150 F.3d 926, 928 (8th Cir. 1998) (stating that Stewart recognizes that some types of 'second' petitions do not implicate the judicially developed abuse-of-the-writ principles that were the basis for AEDPA's statutory restrictions); Camarano, 98 F.3d at 46-47 (analogizing to civil claim preclusion doctrine); 2 Liebman & Hertz, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure 28.3a, at 275 (2d ed. Supp. 1997) (Applying the no-second-bite rule makes no sense when a prior petition gave the prisoner what amounts to no bite at the apple -- because the prior petition involved a different apple, because no bite was taken when the apple previously was before the court, or because no bite could have been taken at that time because the claim had not yet come into existence or would not have been cognizable at the time of the earlier petition. (emphasis in original)); see also id. 28.3b, at 1163-71 (3d ed. 1998). We do not purport to define the full scope of the phrase second or successive. However, as a general matter, if a petition falls under the modified res judicata rule known as the abuse of the writ doctrine -- because, for example, it raises a claim that could have been properly raised and decided in a previous 2255 petition -- it also falls within the definition of second or successive. Once the petition is defined as second or successive, review occurs only if certain requirements are met. Application to Barrett's 1996 Petition Applying these principles, we conclude that Barrett's current petition is a second or successive one. This petition does not fit into any of the exceptions described above: Barrett's 1990 petition, which was undisputedly brought pursuant to 2255, was dismissed on the merits (although the Jencks Act claim was not considered); his current petition challenges the same judgment that was challenged in his 1990 petition; and there has been no new judgment or amendment of sentence. See Thomas v. Superintendent/Woodbourne Corr. Facility, 136 F.3d 227, 229-30 (2d Cir. 1997) (per curiam).Further, there is no question that Barrett's Jencks Act claim was available and, unlike the Ford claim at issue in Stewart, could have been both brought and adjudicated at the time of the first petition. Barrett had the transcript of the interview with Aceto at the time he brought the Brady claim in the 1990 petition.Although Barrett leans heavily on the contention that his Jencks Act claim was not available until after the filing of the AUSA's affidavit, which he characterizes as an admission of bad faith, it cannot be that a Jencks Act claim asserting bad faith is unavailable until there has been a direct admission from the prosecutor -- a circumstance that is surely a rare one. Assuming that the existence of bad faith was necessary in order to raise the claim, Barrett had in front of him various facts from which he could have marshaled a reasonable argument to that effect. Cf. McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467, 498-500 (1991) (explaining that cause for the failure to raise a claim is not established if petitioner possessed . . . a sufficient basis to allege a claim in the first petition and pursue the matter through the habeas process (citing 2254 provisions on discovery, expansion of the record, and evidentiary hearing)). Indeed, Barrett's own brief to us on this appeal seems to construct an argument -- that total suppression is equivalent to willful destruction, which is equivalent to an elect[ion] not to comply with the Act, 18 U.S.C. 3500(d) -- that does not rely on any government admissions. See Appellant's Brief at 26-27. Barrett now asserts that he should be excused from his failure to raise the Jencks Act claim in his first petition because, he says, filing such a claim prior to the submission of the AUSA's affidavit would amount to a violation of Rule 11. That is not so. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(3) (stating that an attorney presenting a pleading certifies that to the best of the person's knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances, . . . the allegations and other factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, are likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery); Navarro-Ayala v. Nunez, 986 F.2d 1421, 1425 (1st Cir. 1992); Lancellotti v. Fay, 909 F.2d 15, 19 (1st Cir. 1990); see also 1 Liebman & Hertz, supra, 11.3b, at 488-89 (3d ed. 1998) ([A] reasonable, even if as yet unconfirmed, belief that a meritorious fact-based claim exists may oblige the prisoner . . . to raise the claim and to pursue it via, e.g., court-funded investigation . . . , discovery, an evidentiary hearing, and other fact-development procedures of the sort that often are not fully available to prisoners until they file a habeas corpus petition. Thus, as Justice O'Connor has stated, referring . . . to McCleskey, the Court's 'carefully crafted doctrines of waiver and abuse of the writ make it especially important that the first petition adequately set forth all of a state prisoner's colorable grounds for relief.' (quoting McFarland v. Scott, 512 U.S. 849, 860 (1994) (O'Connor, J., concurring in the judgment in part)) (footnote omitted)); Rule 6 Governing Section 2255 Proceedings for the United States District Courts. Further, even assuming that the AUSA's affidavit was more than simply evidence discovered later [that] might also have supported or strengthened the [existing] claim, McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 498, Barrett also had the option of seeking to amend his petition again to add the claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15 (stating that leave [to amend] shall be freely given when justice so requires); Rule 12 Governing Section 2255 Proceedings for the United States District Courts; United States v. Craycraft, 167 F.3d 451, 457 & n.6 (8th Cir. 1999); 2 Liebman & Hertz, supra, 28.1, at 1145-46 (3d ed. 1998) (If claims become available after the habeas corpus petition is filed, the petitioner generally should amend the new claims into the petition at the earliest possible opportunity . . . .). He did not even attempt to do so. Cf. In re Hill, 113 F.3d 181, 183 (11th Cir. 1997) (per curiam) (stating that the liberal amendment policy applicable to habeas petitions may make [new] claims . . . 'available' to the petitioner during a prior habeas action, even when the claim would not have been available at the inception of that prior action). Barrett also makes a separate argument. He argues that the Jencks Act claim was in fact properly presented in his first petition and that he should not be penalized for the failure of the court to address it. While such a situation is conceivable, cf. Wainwright v. Norris, 121 F.3d 339, 340-41 (8th Cir. 1997), it is not the situation that we face here. This court has already rejected Barrett's argument that he properly presented the Jencks Act claim by traverse and has held that the district court did not err in failing to rule on the claim. See Barrett, 965 F.2d at 1187-88 & n.3. Whether we consider this holding to be law of the case or law of the circuit (indeed, we have relied on it in subsequent opinions), Barrett's challenge to it, which largely consists of citations to factually and legally distinguishable cases, has not provided us with a rationale for disturbing our own previous resolution of the issue. See Lacy v. Gardino, 791 F.2d 980, 984-85 (1st Cir. 1986); see also Shore v. Warden, Stateville Prison, 942 F.2d 1117, 1123 (7th Cir. 1991); Aldridge v. Dugger, 925 F.2d 1320, 1326 (11th Cir. 1991); cf. Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F.3d 1484, 1492 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 586 (1997); Singleton v. United States, 26 F.3d 233, 240 (1st Cir. 1994); United States v. Michaud, 925 F.2d 37, 43 (1st Cir. 1991). Barrett's Jencks Act claim was not dismissed without prejudice when his first petition was decided, or missed through some error of the court's. The situation presented here is therefore equivalent to the common situation in which a petitioner who has failed to raise an available claim in his first petition attempts to raise that claim in a later petition. That situation clearly falls within the second or successive rule, even though the claim has never been adjudicated on the merits. See Pratt, 129 F.3d at 62 (As a general rule, a prisoner who had both the incentive and the ability to raise a particular claim in his first petition for post-conviction relief, but declined to assert it, cannot raise it the second time around.); see also Corrao v. United States, 152 F.3d 188, 191 (2d Cir. 1998) (Generally, a 2255 petition is 'second or successive' if a prior 2255 petition, raising claims regarding the same conviction or sentence, has been decided on the merits. This remains true even if the latter petition purports to raise new claims. (citation omitted)). As we stated in Pratt,The requirement that all available claims be presented in a prisoner's first habeas petition is consistent not only with the spirit of AEDPA's restrictions on second and successive habeas petitions, but also with the preexisting abuse of the writ principle. The requirement serves the singularly salutary purpose of forcing federal habeas petitioners to think through all potential post-conviction claims and to consolidate them for a unitary presentation to the district court. This exercise advances the cause of judicial efficiency and further justifies barring [petitioner]'s second petition. Pratt, 129 F.3d at 61. Accordingly, Barrett's 2255 petition is second or successive within the meaning of AEDPA -- the result we suggested in our previous, pre-AEDPA decision in this case. See Barrett, 965 F.2d at 1188 n.7. The Retroactivity Argument and the Pre-AEDPA Test Barrett contends that, even if we construe his petition as a second or successive 2255 petition, he meets the requirements for proceeding in the district court because the restrictions in AEDPA on such petitions should not apply to him.Despite the instruction in Lindh v. Murphy, 521 U.S. 320 (1997), that the provisions of AEDPA govern petitions filed after April 24, 1996, see id. at 326-27; Pratt, 129 F.3d at 58, Barrett ignores the AEDPA amendments to 2255. Barrett instead confines his argument to the terms of the test set forth in McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U.S. 467 (1991), which is less restrictive than the AEDPA amendments, see Galtieri, 128 F.3d at 35-36; Benton, 106 F.3d at 163. Barrett attempts to justify his avoidance of AEDPA by asserting that the 1996 amendments may not be applied retroactively to him given that his first petition was brought before the enactment of AEDPA. We construe his somewhat abbreviated argument to be that he relied on the law as it existed before AEDPA in his approach to the Jencks Act claim in his first petition, and that this reliance interest deserves protection. We have not adopted this so-called mousetrapping doctrine, seeBurris v. Parke, 95 F.3d 465, 468-69 (7th Cir. 1996) (en banc),and do not do so now. As we did in Pratt, we will assume arguendo that the doctrine is applicable and briefly consider whether Barrett's claim meets the notoriously difficult to pass pre-AEDPA test in order to determine whether Barrett may have somehow relied on the prior state of the law. Pratt, 129 F.3d at 58-59; see also United States v. Ortiz, 136 F.3d 161, 166 (D.C. Cir. 1998).Under the pre-AEDPA test, a petitioner's failure to raise a claim in a prior petition was excused in either one of two situations. The first was where the petitioner show[ed] cause for failing to raise [the claim] and prejudice therefrom. McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 494; see also Andiarena v. United States, 967 F.2d 715, 717 (1st Cir. 1992). Cause is some external impediment, such as government interference or the reasonable unavailability of the factual or legal basis for a claim. Andiarena, 967 F.2d at 718 (citing McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 497); see also Simpson v. Matesanz, No. 98-2343, 1999 WL 257319, at -12 (1st Cir. May 4, 1999) (citing Bousley v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 1604, 1611 (1998)); Whittemore v. United States, 986 F.2d 575, 578 (1st Cir. 1993).The second situation was a showing of a fundamental miscarriage of justice, defined as an extraordinary instance[] when a constitutional violation probably has caused the conviction of one innocent of the crime. McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 494. [T]he miscarriage of justice exception is concerned with actual as compared to legal innocence. Calderon v. Thompson, 118 S. Ct. 1489, 1502-03 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Simpson, 1999 WL 257319, at . To establish actual innocence, a petitioner must demonstrate that, in light of all the evidence, it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him. Bousley, 118 S. Ct. at 1611 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, for the reasons already explained, Barrett is unable to demonstrate cause. He had the opportunity to raise his claim properly at the time of his first petition, but he did not take advantage of it. See McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 498-500. Whether or not his failure to do so was intentional is of no moment. See id. at 489-90 (holding that a petitioner can abuse the writ by raising a claim in a subsequent petition that he could have raised in his first, regardless of whether the failure to raise it earlier stemmed from a deliberate choice); see also Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 85-90 (1977) (rejecting the deliberate bypass standard articulated in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391 (1963)). Nor can Barrett demonstrate actual innocence. Despite counsel's strong pronouncement at oral argument of Barrett's innocence, Barrett's claim reduces to a complicated legal argument (analogous to an argument for the suppression of evidence in the Fourth Amendment context): that the Arkansas interview was Jencks Act material; that the government elect[ed] not to comply with a court order to turn it over and acted in bad faith; that the remedy under the Act would be to strike Aceto's testimony in its entirety; that without Aceto's testimony Barrett would not have been convicted; and that Barrett's conviction is therefore faulty. 18 U.S.C. 3500(d); cf. Embrey v. Hershberger, 131 F.3d 739, 741 (8th Cir. 1997) (en banc) ([Petitioner] has conflated his gateway and his ultimate legal claim . . . .), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 78 (1998). Such an assertion of legal innocence is not sufficient.See Bousley, 118 S. Ct. at 1611 (stating that 'actual innocence' means factual innocence, not mere legal insufficiency). And it has already been determined, through Barrett's prior petition, that the evidence the government failed to produce was not material in a constitutional sense -- that is, that it would not raise a reasonable probability of a different outcome. See Barrett, 965 F.2d at 1188-93 & n.15; see also Calderon, 118 S. Ct. at 1503-04; Burks v. Dubois, 55 F.3d 712, 718 (1st Cir. 1995).Barrett has not demonstrated that there would be any impermissible retroactive consequences to applying the AEDPA restrictions to his current petition, even assuming arguendo that is the proper test. Under these AEDPA restrictions, of course, we reach the same conclusion that we reached under McCleskey. Barrett has not argued that he satisfies either of the two AEDPA preconditions for filing a second or successive 2255 petition, and he patently does not. Therefore, we turn to whether this case fits within the savings clause of 2255. B. The Savings Clause in 2255: Inadequate or IneffectiveRemedy Since Barrett may not proceed with his 2255 petition, we turn to his argument that the savings clause of 2255 permits him to proceed under 2241 as a means of seeking relief. See 28 U.S.C. 2241 (stating that [w]rits of habeas corpus may be granted by the Supreme Court, any justice thereof, the district courts and any circuit judge within their respective jurisdictions under specified circumstances). We begin with the limitation on the use of 2241 petitions by federal prisoners that is set forth in 2255: An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to [ 2255], shall not be entertained if it appears that the applicant has failed to apply for relief, by motion, to the court which sentenced him, or that such court has denied him relief, unless it also appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of his detention. This circuit has not previously defined the phrase inadequate or ineffective or analyzed its scope. A petition under 2255 cannot become inadequate or ineffective, thus permitting the use of 2241, merely because a petitioner cannot meet the AEDPA second or successive requirements. Such a result would make Congress's AEDPA amendment of 2255 a meaningless gesture. See, e.g., In re Davenport, 147 F.3d 605, 608 (7th Cir. 1998) (Congress did not change [the inadequate or ineffective] language when in the Antiterrorism Act it imposed limitations on the filing of successive 2255 motions.The retention of the old language opens the way to the argument that when the new limitations prevent the prisoner from obtaining relief under 2255, his remedy under that section is inadequate and he may turn to 2241. That can't be right; it would nullify the limitations.); Triestman v. United States, 124 F.3d 361, 376 (2d Cir. 1997) (If it were the case that any prisoner who is prevented from bringing a 2255 petition could, without more, establish that 2255 is 'inadequate or ineffective,' . . . then Congress would have accomplished nothing at all in its attempts -- through statutes like the AEDPA -- to place limits on federal collateral review.); In re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d 245, 251 (3d Cir. 1997) (stating that inadequacy or ineffectiveness cannot be established merely because th[e] petitioner is unable to meet the stringent gatekeeping requirements of the amended 2255, because [s]uch a holding would effectively eviscerate Congress's intent in amending 2255); In re Vial, 115 F.3d 1192, 1194 n.5 (4th Cir. 1997) (en banc) (stating that 2255 is not inadequate or ineffective simply because an individual is procedurally barred from filing a 2255 motion). Such a reading of the savings clause would also recreate the serious structural problems that led Congress to enact 2255 in the first place. See In re Hanserd, 123 F.3d 922, 925, 934 n.19 (6th Cir. 1997) (If [petitioner] and similarly situated inmates proceed under habeas corpus [which must be brought in the district with jurisdiction over the custodian], . . . courts located near large federal prisons will be inundated with such motions, and witnesses and court records will have to travel thousands of miles to the situs of these habeas hearings, which would be held before a judge unfamiliar with the case.); see also United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205, 210-14 (1952) (discussing the practical problems that prompted the enactment of 2255). Yet the 2255 savings clause, which has been interpreted to avoid constitutional questions about 2255, see Davenport, 147 F.3d at 609, must mean something. In three recent cases, the Seventh, Third, and Second Circuits have addressed the meaning of the inadequate or ineffective language and given it content. All three cases involved a factual scenario in which the petitioner's first 2255 petition had been resolved prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137 (1995). Under Bailey's statutory interpretation, actions for which the petitioner had been convicted were in fact not criminal at all, but the petitioner's second petition, which raised a Bailey claim, was barred by the AEDPA second or successive rules. In interpreting the savings clause, the Seventh Circuit in Davenport looked to the essential function of habeas corpus. It characterized that function as giv[ing] a prisoner a reasonable opportunity to obtain a reliable judicial determination of the fundamental legality of his conviction and sentence. Davenport, 147 F.3d at 609. The court stated that a prisoner who had a chance to raise the question at issue in his appeal and his first 2255 petition had already had his reasonable opportunity, and did not need another procedural shot at getting his sentence vacated.Id. at 609-10 (Society . . . is unwilling to expend indefinitely large judicial resources on repeated testing of the accuracy of a determination of guilt.). However, the court concluded that 2241 was available where a Bailey claim simply could not have been presented on direct appeal or in a first petition, stating that [a] procedure for postconviction relief can fairly be termed inadequate when it is so configured as to deny a convicted defendant any opportunity for judicial rectification of so fundamental a defect in his conviction as having been imprisoned for a nonexistent offense. Id. at 611; see also id. (A federal prisoner should be permitted to seek habeas corpus only if he had no reasonable opportunity to obtain earlier judicial correction of a fundamental defect in his conviction or sentence because the law changed after his first 2255 motion.). The Seventh Circuit's holding in Davenport is very similar to the Third Circuit's holding in Dorsainvil that 2241 relief is available in the unusual circumstance in which application of the AEDPA second or successive limitations would result in a complete miscarriage of justice. Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251 (internal quotation marks omitted). Like Davenport, Dorsainvil stressed that the petitioner had not had an earlier opportunity to raise his Bailey claim; the court also pointed out that [t]he government has not suggested that Dorsainvil has abused the writ, the principal situation that the AEDPA was intended to eliminate. Id. Further, the court emphasized that its holding was a narrow one and was not intended to interfere with application of the 2255 gatekeeping provisions. See id. at 25152 ([A]llowing someone in Dorsainvil's unusual position -- that of a prisoner who had no earlier opportunity to challenge his conviction for a crime that an intervening change in substantive law may negate, even when the government concedes that such a change should be applied retroactively -- is hardly likely to undermine the gatekeeping provisions of 2255.). Davenport and Dorsainvil are also similar to, but distinct from, the Second Circuit's holding in Triestman that a federal prisoner can seek 2241 habeas corpus in the set of cases in which the petitioner cannot, for whatever reason, utilize 2255, and in which the failure to allow for collateral review would raise serious constitutional questions. Triestman, 124 F.3d at 377. The Triestman court found that such serious questions were raised where a person . . . can prove his actual innocence on the existing record and could not have effectively raised his claim of innocence at an earlier time. Id. at 363, 377-78; see also id. at 368 n.8 (concluding that the petition at hand would not have been barred under the pre-AEDPA abuse of the writ doctrine).[T]he cases in which serious questions as to 2255's constitutional validity are presented will be relatively few . . . . In reaching this result, we therefore respect Congress' intent to streamline collateral review and to discourage repetitive and piecemeal litigation, while at the same time we give meaning to Congress' express decision (reaffirmed in the AEDPA) to preserve habeas corpus for federal prisoners in those extraordinary instances where justice demands it. Id. at 377-78. To the extent that these cases were concerned with the status of a petitioner's claim under pre-AEDPA abuse of the writ law, they may have been narrowed, in effect, by the holding of the Supreme Court in Bousley v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 1604 (1998).Bousley did not address the savings clause, but did hold on a federal prisoner's first petition under 2255 that cause excusing failure to make an argument was not shown by the futility of the argument. See id. at 1611, cited in Simpson, 1999 WL 257319, at -12. But Bousley retained an actual innocence exception and remanded the case so petitioner had the opportunity to show his actual innocence. See id. at 1611-12. We agree with the Davenport, Dorsainvil, and Triestman courts that habeas corpus relief under 2241 remains available for federal prisoners in limited circumstances. See also In re Hanserd, 123 F.3d at 929-30 (asserting without discussion that [i]f AEDPA bars [petitioner] from raising his Bailey issue in a 2255 motion, he could file a habeas petition pursuant to [the inadequate and ineffective] provision); United States v. Lorentsen, 106 F.3d 278, 279 (9th Cir. 1997) (suggesting thatpetitioner making a newly available Bailey claim could use 2241, but not deciding the question because no request for 2241 relief had been sought before the district court). But it is not necessary in this case to articulate those circumstances precisely -- we leave that task for another day. Applying any of the appropriately narrow standards described above clearly demonstrates that petitioner is not entitled to 2241 habeas relief in this case. Barrett's claim does not raise a question of actual innocence, as the post-Bailey claims of the petitioners in Davenport, Dorsainvil, and Triestman arguably did. See Triestman, 124 F.3d at 378-79; cf. In re Jones, 137 F.3d 1271, 1273 n.3 (11th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 1351 (1998); McDonald v. Bowersox, 125 F.3d 1183, 1186 (8th Cir. 1997) (Accordingly, we need not decide whether, and in what circumstances, a claim of actual innocence can allow us to waive 2244(b)(2)'s requirements for our approval of a successive habeas petition.); Bush v. Singletary, 99 F.3d 373, 375 (11th Cir. 1996) (per curiam).Further, where a prisoner had an opportunity to present his claim properly in his first 2255 petition, but failed to do so, any ineffectiveness of his current 2255 petition is due to him and not to 2255. See United States v. Walker, 980 F. Supp. 144, 146 (E.D. Pa. 1997); cf. United States v. Logan, 22 F. Supp. 2d 691, 694 (W.D. Mich. 1998) (The Court concludes that any 'ineffectiveness' in this matter is attributable not to 2255, but to Petitioner, for failure to file within [the AEDPA statute of limitations] period.); Mejia v. INS, No. 97 C 6191, 1998 WL 26163, at  (N.D. Ill. Jan. 16, 1998). Nor is a serious constitutional question raised by the fact that AEDPA bars Barrett's claim from being heard on the merits. We need not reach the issue of the extent to which a Jencks Act claim may ever be of constitutional dimension. The decision on Barrett's prior 2255 petition determined that the use of the nondisclosed material would not have made a difference in the outcome of the trial. Barrett could have raised his claim in his first petition, and Congress may constitutionally treat second or successive petitions differently than first ones. See Lonchar v. Thomas, 517 U.S. 314, 323-25 (1996); cf. Davenport, 147 F.3d at 610. The Supreme Court has already determined that the AEDPA second or successive restrictions applicable to 2254 do not violate the Suspension Clause, and that reasoning is applicable here. See Felker v. Turpin, 518 U.S. 651, 664 (1996) (In McCleskey . . . , we said that 'the doctrine of abuse of the writ refers to a complex and evolving body of equitable principles informed and controlled by historical usage, statutory developments, and judicial decisions.' The added restrictions which the Act places on second habeas petitions are well within the compass of this evolutionary process, and we hold that they do not amount to a 'suspension' of the writ contrary to Article I, 9.(citations omitted) (quoting McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 489, and citing U.S. Const. Art. I, 9, cl. 2 (The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.))); see also Graham v. Johnson, 168 F.3d 762, 787 (5th Cir. 1999); Green v. French, 143 F.3d 865, 875-76 (4th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 844 (1999); Ortiz, 136 F.3d at 168; In re Vial, 115 F.3d at 1197-98. Further, the restrictions at issue do not, under the circumstances of this case, offend separation of powers principles or the Article III grant of judicial power. Cf. Green, 143 F.3d at 875-76. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, Barrett would not have been able to proceed under the pre-AEDPA abuse of the writ doctrine. Therefore, as Barrett implicitly acknowledges, application of the AEDPA standards to bar his 2255 petition -- which would have been barred pre-AEDPA in any event -- does not raise any serious constitutional question. See Davis v. Crabtree, 10 F. Supp. 2d 1136, 1141 (D. Or. 1998) (citing McCleskey, 499 U.S. at 494-95, and Bousley, 118 S. Ct. at 1611-12); cf. Underwood v. United States, 166 F.3d 84, 88 (2d Cir. 1999) (The same considerations that justify denial of relief under 2255 [and make petitioner fail the pre-AEDPA abuse of the writ test] also require that relief be denied under 2241. This is not a case, such as Triestman, in which denial of collateral relief could require a prisoner to serve a sentence for acts that have been ruled not to constitute criminal conduct. (citation omitted)); Ortiz, 136 F.3d at 169 (Because Ortiz does not satisfy the standards for successive 2255 motions in place prior to the enactment of AEDPA, applying AEDPA to his motion cannot make him any worse off than he was prior to its enactment.). C. All Writs Act Finally, Barrett also argues that he may present his claim as a writ of error coram nobis under the All Writs Act. He may not. Barrett relies on United States v. Morgan, 346 U.S. 502 (1954), in which the Supreme Court stated that 2255 should not be construed to cover the entire field of remedies in the nature of coram nobis in federal courts. Id. at 510. However, this statement must be read in light of Morgan's broad concern about whether any possibility of coram nobis survived the enactment of 2255, a provision which was intended to restate[], clarif[y] and simplif[y] the procedure in the nature of the ancient writ of error coram nobis, 28 U.S.C. 2255 Historical and Statutory Notes 1948 Enactment, and the enactment of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), which expressly abolish[ed] the writ of error coram nobis in civil cases, Morgan, 346 U.S. at 505 n.4. Although the Court concluded that coram nobis was available to the Morgan petitioner, the Court did not hold that there are situations in which both 2255 and coram nobis are applicable. The Morgan petitioner was no longer in custody, as is required in order to seek 2255 relief. See id. at 503-04. Indeed, as the Supreme Court noted in rejecting the use of coram nobis in Carlisle v. United States, 517 U.S. 416 (1996), [t]he All Writs Act is a residual source of authority to issue writs that are not otherwise covered by statute. Where a statute specifically addresses the particular issue at hand, it is that authority, and not the All Writs Act, that is controlling. Id. at 428-29 (quoting Pennsylvania Bureau of Correction v. United States Marshals Serv., 474 U.S. 34, 43 (1985)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co. v. Markarian, 114 F.3d 346, 350 (1st Cir. 1997) (The All Writs Act does not authorize [federal courts] to issue ad hoc writs whenever compliance with statutory procedures appears inconvenient or less appropriate.(internal quotation marks omitted)). Barrett asserts that no statute, other than the Jencks Act and statutory provisions governing direct appeals, specifically addresses the particular issue at hand in his case.However, 2255 is applicable to Barrett, and the statute specifically addresses this situation by barring Barrett's second 2255 petition. See, e.g., United States v. Brown, 117 F.3d 471, 475 (11th Cir. 1997); United States v. Kindle, 88 F.3d 535, 536 (8th Cir. 1996) (per curiam).That 2255 does not provide Barrett with a means to obtain the relief he seeks does not mean that it is not a controlling authority for the purposes of determining whether the All Writs Act applies. The fact that 2255 bars his second petition at its inception does not make that provision any less controlling. In Carlisle itself, the Court forbade the use of coram nobis to circumvent Rule 29, Fed. R. Civ. P., despite the fact that application of that rule meant that the defendant's motion for a judgment of acquittal was untimely and should have been rejected immediately by the district court without any consideration of the merits or any grant of relief. See Carlisle, 517 U.S. at 428-29, 433; see also Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 114 F.3d at 350 (finding use of the All Writs Act inappropriate where Rule 69(a) had been consistently interpreted to block plaintiff's claim); Ex parte Farrell, 189 F.2d 540, 545 (1st Cir. 1951) (Where the appeal statutes establish the conditions of appellate review [such as timeliness], an appellate court cannot rightly exercise its authority to issue a writ under the 'all writs' section, 28 U.S.C. 1651, the only effect of which would be to avoid those conditions and thwart the congressional policy. For us to grab hold of the present case under 28 U.S.C. 1651 would not be in aid of our appellate jurisdiction . . . , but would be a palpable evasion of the statutory conditions which Congress has seen fit to impose . . . .). The writ of coram nobis may not be used to circumvent the clear congressional directive embodied in the second or successive provisions of 2255, which are themselves a sort of timeliness requirement. See, e.g., United States v. Damiano, No. CRIM. 90-00488-01, 1997 WL 539704, at  (E.D. Pa. Aug. 6, 1997) ([T]he [AEDPA] limits the ability of a petitioner to obtain relief in later Section 2255 motions and encourages all petitioners to include all of their claims of error in their first motion. For this reason, given the broad purpose of the Act, it would be astounding if [the second or successive restrictions] could be rendered wholly ineffective by the simple ruse of labeling future 2255 motions as petitions for writs of coram nobis.); Bennett v. United States, No. 87 CR 874, 1997 WL 285987, at  (N.D. Ill. May 22, 1997) ([Section] 2255 is not unavailable to [petitioner]; it just offers him no relief from his sentence.); see also, e.g., United States v. Bailey, No. 97 C 7665, 94 CR 481, 1997 WL 757869, at  (N.D. Ill. Nov. 26, 1997) (applying the same rule in a case involving the AEDPA statute of limitations). It may be that there are situations in which 2255 is not controlling despite the fact that the petitioner remains in custody -- for instance, where 2255 is inadequate or ineffective. See Triestman, 124 F.3d at 380 n.24; see also United States v. Ransom, 985 F. Supp. 1017, 1019 (D. Kan. 1997). But we have no cause to explore those potential situations in this case, since 2255 is not inadequate or ineffective and so plainly specifically addresses the situation that we face. Carlisle, 517 U.S. at 429 (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Davenport, 147 F.3d at 608 ([I]f Congress has forbidden federal prisoners to proceed under 2241 even when 2255 is closed to them[,] then it would be senseless to suppose that Congress permitted them to pass through the closed door simply by changing the number 2241 to 1651 on their motions.). The scope of relief obtainable under the All Writs Act is narrowed when a statute governing a particular issue is enacted.Here 2255, as amended by AEDPA, governs. There is no contention that the AEDPA provisions themselves have somehow amended the All Writs Act. We conclude merely that Barrett is not permitted to proceed with a 1651 petition under the circumstances of this case. For the reasons already discussed, barring Barrett's petition does not present any constitutional difficulties.