Opinion ID: 772508
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Savings Clause Test

Text: 34 28 U.S.C. 2241 is typically used to challenge the manner in which a sentence is executed. See Warren v. Miles, 230 F.3d 688, 694 (5th Cir. 2000). 28 U.S.C. 2255, on the other hand, is the primary means under which a federal prisoner may collaterally attack the legality of his conviction or sentence. 18 See Cox v. Warden, Fed. Detention Ctr., 911 F.2d 1111, 1113 (5th Cir. 1990) (Relief under [ 2255] is warranted for any error that 'occurred at or prior to sentencing.' (quoting United States v. Flores, 616 F.2d 840, 842 (5th Cir.1980))). 35 However, 2241 may be utilized by a federal prisoner to challenge the legality of his or her conviction or sentence if he or she can satisfy the mandates of the so-called 2255 savings clause: 36 An application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a prisoner who is authorized to apply for relief by motion pursuant to this section, 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. 37 28 U.S.C. 2255 (2000) (emphasis added). The inadequacy or inefficacy of the remedy will therefore permit a federal prisoner to file a writ of habeas corpus under provisions such as 2241. 19 38 The petitioner bears the burden of demonstrating that the section 2255 remedy is inadequate or ineffective. Pack v. Yusuff, 218 F.3d 448, 452 (5th Cir. 2000). Our jurisprudence regarding 2255's savings clause makes clear that 2241 is not a mere substitute for 2255 and that the inadequacy or inefficacy requirement is stringent. See, e.g., Kinder v. Purdy, 222 F.3d 209, 214 (5th Cir. 2000) (Section 2241 is simply not available to prisoners as a means of challenging a result they previously obtained from a court considering their petition for habeas relief.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 121 S.Ct. 894 ___ L.Ed.2d ___(2001); Pack, 218 F.3d at 453 ([M]erely failing to succeed in a section 2255 motion does not establish the inadequacy or ineffectiveness of the section 2255 remedy.); Id. at 452-53 (collecting cases); Tolliver v. Dobre, 211 F.3d 876, 878 (5th Cir. 2000) ([A] prior unsuccessful 2255 motion, or the inability to meet AEDPA's 'second or successive' requirement, does not make 2255 inadequate or ineffective.); McGhee v. Hanberry, 604 F.2d 9, 10 (5th Cir. 1979). Our sister circuits have also uniformly recognized the limited exception created by the savings clause. See, e.g., Caravalho v. Pugh, 177 F.3d 1177, 1178 (10th Cir. 1999) (stating that statute of limitations bar to filing a second 2255 motion, without more, is insufficient to demonstrate inadequacy or inefficacy); Triestman, 124 F.3d at 376 (stating that 2255's substantive and procedural barriers, without more, do not establish inadequacy or inefficacy). 39 To date, the Supreme Court has not provided much guidance as to the factors that must be satisfied for a petitioner to file under habeas corpus provisions such as 2241. In United States v. Hayman, the Court simply observed that habeas corpus writs are available when 2255 is inadequate or ineffective. See 342 U.S. 205, 223 (1952); see also Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 381 (1977) (stating that the substitution of a collateral remedy which is neither inadequate nor ineffective to test the legality of a person's detention does not constitute a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in contravention of Article 1, 9 of the Constitution). 40 However, a number of our sister circuits have formulated tests for the savings clause. Some have addressed the issue in the context of Bailey claims. See In re Jones, 226 F.3d 328 (4th Cir. 2000) 20 ; In re Davenport, 147 F.3d 605 (7th Cir. 1998) 21 ; Triestman, 124 F.3d 361 22 ; In re Hanserd, 123 F.3d 922 (6th Cir. 1997) 23 ; In re Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d 245 (3d Cir. 1997). 24 Other circuits have discussed the savings clause in the context of various non-Bailey claims. See Sustache-Rivera v. United States, 221 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2000) (Jones claim, 18 U.S.C. 2119) 25 ; United States v. Lurie, 207 F.3d 1075 (8th Cir. 2000) (claim under 18 U.S.C. 1623, false declaration in bankruptcy proceeding) 26 ; Wofford v. Scott, 177 F.3d 1236 (11th Cir. 1999) (various sentencing claims). 27 41 The standards that these courts have articulated for the savings clause may not be framed in identical terms, but the following basic features are evident in most formulations: actual innocence and retroactivity. 28 42 Courts have framed the actual innocence factor differently, but the core idea is that the petitioner may have been imprisoned for conduct that was not prohibited by law. Such a situation would likely surface in a case that relies on a Supreme Court decision interpreting the reach of a federal statute due to the following rationale: Section 2255 is the primary method by which a federal prisoner may collaterally attack a conviction or sentence. See Tolliver v. Dobre, 211 F.3d 876, 877 (5th Cir. 2000). Thus, a petitioner's first recourse on collateral review is the initial 2255 motion (which can be filed, inter alia, on grounds that the sentence violated the Constitution or federal laws). Similarly, if a petitioner has already filed a 2255 motion, his or her second recourse would be a successive 2255 motion. Section 2255 permits second or successive motions only if the motion contains: 43 (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 44 (2) a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable. 45 28 U.S.C. 2255 (2000). 46 And, as subsection (2) speaks only to intervening Supreme Court decisions based on constitutional grounds, the provision does not provide any avenue through which a petitioner could rely on an intervening Court decision based on the substantive reach of a federal statute. See Lorentsen v. Hood, 223 F.3d 950, 953 (9th Cir. 2000) (Congress has determined that second or successive [ 2255] motions may not contain statutory claims.); Sustache-Rivera, 221 F.3d at 16 (The savings clause has most often been used as a vehicle to present an argument that, under a Supreme Court decision overruling the circuit courts as to the meaning of a statute, a prisoner is not guilty . . . . The savings clause has to be resorted to for [statutory claims] because Congress restricted second or successive petitions to constitutional claims. (internal citations omitted)). 47 [D]ecisions of [the Supreme Court] holding that a substantive federal criminal statute does not reach certain conduct . . . necessarily carry a significant risk that a defendant stands convicted of 'an act that the law does not make criminal.' Bousley v. United States, 523 U.S. 614, 620 (1998) (quoting Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 346 (1974)); see also United States v. McKie, 73 F.3d 1149, 1151 (D.C. Cir. 1996) ([A] court's interpretation of a substantive criminal statute generally declares what the statute meant from the date of its enactment.). 48 To capture the idea that the incarceration of one whose conduct is not criminal 'inherently results in a complete miscarriage of justice,' Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 346 (1974), most circuits have included an actual innocence component in their savings clause tests. See, e.g., Jones, 226 F.3d at 334 (the substantive law changed such that the conduct of which the prisoner was convicted is deemed not to be criminal); Wofford, 177 F.3d at 1244 (the holding of [the] Supreme Court establishes the petitioner was convicted for a nonexistent offense); Davenport, 147 F.3d at 611 (so fundamental a defect in his conviction as having been imprisoned for a nonexistent offense); Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251 (prisoner who had no earlier opportunity to challenge his conviction for a crime that an intervening change in substantive law may negate). The actual innocence element has also been foreshadowed in our own savings clause jurisprudence. See, e.g., Kinder, 222 F.3d at 213 (noting with approval that [w]here the petitioner's case has been viewed [in other circuits] as falling within the savings clause, it was in part because the petitioner arguably was convicted for a nonexistent offense). 49 Second, the decision upon which the petitioner is relying must be retroactively applicable on collateral review. See Wofford, 177 F.3d at 1244 (claim is based on a retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision); Dorsainvil, 119 F.3d at 251 (government concedes that such a change should be applied retroactively). 50 We therefore hold that the savings clause of 2255 applies to a claim (i) that is based on a retroactively applicable Supreme Court decision which establishes that petitioner may have been convicted of a nonexistent offense and (ii) that was foreclosed by circuit law at the time when the claim should have been raised in the petitioner's trial, appeal, or first 2255 motion. Under these circumstances, it can fairly be said, in the language of the savings clause, that the remedy by [a successive 2255] motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [the petitioner's] detention. Of course, this test will operate in the context of our existing jurisprudence regarding what is not sufficient to obtain access to the savings clause. See, e.g., Pack, 218 F.3d at 452-53 (providing examples of such circumstances from caselaw). 51