Court Opinion

ID: 9493997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:25:52.300812+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:09.367259
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY,
concurring in the judgment.
The issue here is whether the application should be dismissed with prejudice or without. Of course, as the majority reiterates, the purpose of 28 U.S.C. § 2244 is to preclude (in the most comprehensive way imaginable) any extended collateral litigation challenging criminal convictions. In general, the section prescribes a “one petition and out” format, so that, excepting extraordinary circumstances, successive petitions never survive for consideration on the merits. This format — and our practice in applying it — presents three possible outcomes for Brannigan’s successive Ap-prendi-based petition. One possible outcome, arising under § 2244(b)(1), is that Brannigan’s claim must be dismissed with prejudice because it was presented in a prior application. An identical outcome is dictated by § 2244(b)(2), under which it is our practice to dismiss with prejudice a claim not presented in a prior application unless it relies on “a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable .... ” Only if Brannigan has presented a new claim that relies on a new rule of constitutional law that was “previously unavailable” to him, will we dismiss his application without prejudice under § 2244(b)(2) because the Supreme Court has not yet declared Apprendi to be retroactive, although there is a possibility that it will in the future.
Judge Easterbrook, the author of today’s majority opinion, has elsewhere characterized the effect of § 2244 as follows: “If the claim has been presented before, it has to be dismissed. If it’s never been presented before, it has to be dismissed.” Constitutional Law Scholars Attempt to Distill Recent Supreme Court Term, 65 *590U.S.L.W. 2274, 2287 (1996). It is thus not surprising that in its haste to ensure that Brannigan never mounts an Apprendi-based challenge to his sentence in this court again, the majority attempts to show that both § 2244(b)(1) and (2) require that Brannigan’s application be dismissed with prejudice. The majority primarily and extensively argues that Brannigan has presented a claim that is identical to the claim presented in his initial application, and that Brannigan’s successive application should thus be dismissed with prejudice under § 2244(b)(1). In the alternative, the majority argues (in a final paragraph that appears to be little more than an afterthought) that Brannigan’s claim, although possibly new, relies on Apprendi — a rule that was not previously unavailable to him. Thus, § 2244(b)(2) also dictates, that Bran-nigan’s application be dismissed with prejudice. But, by devoting its primary effort to the issue of whether Brannigan is now presenting a new claim or an old one, the majority may be pursuing an issue that may have broader ramifications in other contexts. I will therefore give principal attention to the majority’s argument about the meaning of “claim” and bring a secondary focus to its comments on the alternative ground for decision, which may turn on the meaning of “unavailable.”
With respect to the question whether we have two claims or one, I believe that Brannigan’s arguments — the first challenging a weapons enhancement and the second challenging a drug quantity determination' — present different claims. A claim, specifically in the context of the federal habeas statute, is “a set of facts giving rise to a right to a legal remedy.” See Bennett v. United States, 119 F.3d 470, 471-72 (7th Cir.1997) (Posner, C.J.). A claim is therefore distinguished by its facts (specifically, by its “nucleus of operative facts”), not just by the legal principle that it invokes or the body of law from which it derives. In principle, the majority would seem to agree since it correctly notes that “in both civil and criminal practice it is the underlying events, rather than the legal arguments advanced to obtain relief from those events, that demarcate a ‘claim.’ ” Op. at 587-88. The majority continues along the same line of analysis by declaring that “it is essential to define the ‘claim’ as a challenge to a particular step in the case ....” Id. However, the majority then flees the implications of this analysis by declaring that “[i]t would cut matters entirely too fine to divide into separate ‘claims’ each element of the calculation under the Sentencing Guidelines.” Id. at 588.
In my view, the majority’s position simply rejects the straightforward definition of a “claim” as being distinguished by its facts (specifically, its nucleus of operative facts). The facts surrounding a weapons enhancement are obviously quite different from the facts surrounding a drug quantity determination. Therefore, allegations relating to one set of facts would in normal parlance constitute a “claim” separate and distinct from allegations relating to another set of facts.
The majority’s position that Brannigan may not disaggregate the process of U.S.S.G. § 5A, which, in prescribing a sentence, “combines and specifies the effect of all calculations that go into the offense level and criminal history,” op. at 588, also results in a definition of “claim” that might encourage applicants to challenge their sentence in a manner that is contrary to generally accepted pleading requirements. Because the majority refuses to disaggregate the process of § 5A, under the majority’s reasoning an Apprendi-based challenge to an applicant’s sentence might require no more specificity than a general allegation that the sentencing court somehow violated Apprendi when it *591calculated the inmate’s sentence. This, after all, would be the appropriate event, under the majority’s theory, to be raised by the petition. But, were an inmate to file an application containing such a con-clusory allegation, I have little doubt that we would dismiss it for failure to allege a sufficiently specific claim. See, e.g., Dellenbach v. Hanks, 76 F.3d 820, 822 (7th Cir.1996) (noting generally that petitions are dismissed when the petitioner makes conclusory, rather than specific factual, allegations); Aleman v. United States, 878 F.2d 1009, 1012-13 (7th Cir.1989) (conclu-sory allegation that two individuals were government informants required dismissal of § 2255 petition). To avoid dismissal for failure to state a specific claim, we would require the inmate to specify what aspect or aspects of his sentencing calculation ran afoul of Apprendi. This strongly suggests that the same specific aspects constitute the “claim” as denoted by § 2244(b)(2).
Thus, I believe that, at least with regard to Apprendi claims, disaggregation of the sentencing calculation is required when looking at the facts that form such a claim. That is what Brannigan has done here, alleging a violation of Apprendi because of his weapons enhancement in the first application, and because of the drug quantity ascribed to him in the second application. These claims each rely on a different nucleus of facts, which is specific enough to avoid dismissal as conclusory.
Perhaps realizing the difficulties of its primary argument, the majority also invokes a parade of horribles that raises the possibility of challenging a single sentence multiple times based on one challenge for each of “dozens” of prior convictions affecting the criminal history level, “plus one for each offense-severity level.” Slip op. at 5. But such a scenario poses no threat in the real world, for it is hard to imagine that a Supreme Court decision would provide a non-frivolous basis for invalidating each one of “dozens” of prior convictions. And if an inmate files a barrage of frivolous claims, based on Apprendi or whatever, they can be quashed regardless of the provisions of § 2244 because this court has an arsenal of weapons to employ against serial filers of frivolous claims — whether convicted inmates or others.
Accordingly, it is entirely reasonable and consonant with the plain meaning of the statute to regard a claim based on a firearms enhancement to be quite different from one based on drug quantity. The AEDPA requires that we deal differently with a claim “presented in a prior application” from one “not presented in a prior application.” Brannigan’s drug quantity claim has not been presented in a prior application and it should be dealt with on that basis.
In its final (almost “throw-away”) paragraph of argument, the majority presents an entirely different rationale for dismissing with prejudice. Under § 2244(b)(2)(A), we will dismiss a new claim with prejudice unless the claim “relies on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable .... ” Crucial here is the answer to the question whether Ap-prendi qualifies as a new rule that was “previously unavailable” to Brannigan. It may, of course, be argued that Apprendi is no longer a new rule from Brannigan’s perspective because it was decided prior to Brannigan’s previous habeas corpus application. See Bennett v. United States, 119 F.3d 470, 472 (7th Cir.1997); In re Medina, 109 F.3d 1556, 1565 (11th Cir.1997). It seems to me, however, that the language of § 2244(b)(2)(A) ought to be read as a whole and that, as long as a rule remains “unavailable,” it must correspondingly be regarded as “new.” Cf. Hernandez v. *592United States, 226 F.3d 839, 841 (7th Cir.2000) (“[A] new rule that is retroactive for purposes of collateral attack is not ‘available’ for a § 2256 motion until the Supreme Court has clearly ruled that this is the case.”). In other words, a rule remains “new” as long as it is “unavailable.” Since the Supreme Court has not made Apprendi retroactive to cases on collateral review, the rule remains unavailable to the applicant and functionally occupies the same position as if it were literally “new.” Whether the applicant knew of the existence of the rule or not — whether it was “new” to him — he could not take advantage of it; it was not available to him.
However, we have the additional circumstance here that, when he filed his earlier application, the applicant knew of Appren-di and attempted to rely on its (then unavailable) rule. Significantly, however, the panel then considered his claim as if Ap-prendi had been made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court. Cf. Hernandez, 226 F.3d at 841. Roughly speaking, that earlier decision was “on the merits” in that it applied the Apprendi rule even though Apprendi was then “unavailable.” It may not be stretching things too far to see this earlier decision as affording Brannigan all the consideration due him under the statute. On this basis, I see the factors arguing for and against dismissal with prejudice as being in equipoise. A tie, perhaps, goes to the majority, and on that basis, I can concur in the judgment.