Court Opinion

ID: 9574721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:07:32.135789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:43:30.249786
License: Public Domain

BOGGS, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
While I recognize the attraction of a clear rule that a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend judgment will never be treated as a second or successive habeas petition, I simply do not see how that principle can be sustained in every case.
I think it is clear that not every Rule 59(e) motion should be treated as a second habeas. If that were so, it would vitiate the proper office that Rule 59(e) fills: allowing a litigant to bring to the attention of a district judge errors, whether of fact, law, or interpretation, in the judge’s decision on the case as it was put before him. If every 59(e) motion were a successive petition requiring Court of Appeals permission, the rule would functionally have been repealed in habeas cases by AEDPA, and there is no sign that anyone thought that such would be the result.
At the same time, I do not see how many filings labeled as 59(e) motions can escape being ruled out by the basic premise of AEDPA: that all habeas claims should generally be brought at one time and that piecemeal habeas litigation should be discouraged to the greatest extent possible, permitted only by Court of Appeals permission. Thus, when a party labels a filing as a 59(e) motion (and files within ten days of the denial of an earlier habeas) it would be anomalous to say that the petition must be entertained even though it is based on wholly new claims that could just as well have been labeled a second petition. In other words, a document that would clearly require Court of Appeals permission to be filed and considered cannot be saved simply because exactly the same document is filed within ten days of the denial of a prior habeas.
Given these two, to my mind incontrovertible, propositions, the district court is *477necessarily left with the task, at times difficult, though not overly onerous, of determining what is a proper Rule 59(e) motion. It seems to me that the district court properly carried out its function in this case, found the purported 59(e) motion to fail the basic test for a proper such motion — it raises new claims, and does not simply address itself to correcting the alleged errors made by the district court in its consideration of earlier claims — and transferred the case to us. I would affirm that decision, consider the matter on its merits under the AEPDA standard for second or successive petitions, and deny the motion, in accordance with the established procedure of at least three of our sister circuits. See United States v. Pedraza, 466 F.3d 932 (10th Cir.2006); United States v. Lambros, 404 F.3d 1034 (8th Cir.2005); United States v. Martin, 132 Fed.Appx. 450 (4th Cir.2005).
The only precedential support for our ruling today, the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Curry v. United States, does not persuade me to the contrary. As the majority candidly notes, at page 3, Curry is not a square holding because it found the purported motion to be, in fact, a Rule 60(b) motion that was barred by AEDPA, without circuit permission. Indeed, Curry expressly recognized that a motion, like Howard’s, that “does not seek to alter or amend (in other words, to reconsider and revise) the [district court’s] judgment” is not substantively a Rule 59(e) motion and should not be treated as such. Curry v. United States, 307 F.3d 664, 666 (7th Cir. 2002).
Ironically, the court’s opinion does not appear to quarrel with my basic analysis. It specifically discusses, at page 475-76, the fact that Rule 59(e) motions “cannot be used to present new arguments that could have been raised prior to judgment.” Yet it appears clearly that this is just such a case. As the majority notes on page 473, petitioner asked for reconsideration “so that he could amend his motion to vacate sentence to allege, for the first time, errors in his sentencing” (emphasis added) and the majority then states that the “district court may well deny the Rule 59(e) motion on that ground.” (page 475-76).
Thus, the only practical effect of this decision is to require the newly raised matters (wrongly labeled a 59(e) motion) to be ruled on by the district court, then to be subject to appeal and en banc rehearing on their merits, rather than having a circuit panel either allow them to go forward, or, in most instances, put them completely to rest, not subject to en banc rehearing or petition for certiorari, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(E).
This result does not appear to me to comport with the language or purpose of AEDPA, and I therefore respectfully dissent.