Lead Opinion
Steve Alan Daniels requests leave to file an application for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, arguing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Apprendi v. New Jersey,
That holding does not entirely dispose of Mr. Daniels’ case, however. Because this is his first habeas application following the amendment of section 2255 by the Antiter-rorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (1996), he raises an additional question for our consideration: whether, assuming he can meet the pre-AEDPA requirements for raising an Apprendi claim in a successive petition under section 2255, applying AEDPA’s standards to his application is impermissibly retroactive. After a detailed consideration of the requirements for raising new claims based on new rules of criminal procedure pre- and post-AEDPA, we conclude that no impermissible retroactive result will arise
I
BACKGROUND
Steve Daniels was convicted in 1988 on several counts of racketeering and heroin distribution, receiving a twenty-one-year sentence for the drug charges and concurrent sentences of five to twenty years for the other crimes. He appealed, asserting, inter alia, that his sentence on the drug distribution charges exceeded the period authorized by the statute under which he was indicted. After this court upheld his conviction and sentence on appeal, United States v. Ware,
In seeking permission to file this latest habeas petition, Mr. Daniels contends his conviction and sentence are unconstitutional under Apprendi, which establishes that “any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The amount of drugs underlying the charges against Mr. Daniels was not stated in his indictment nor presented to the jury for determination as required after Ap-prendi. He was, however, indicted for and convicted of distributing an identifiable quantity of heroin, which is prohibited under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(C). This statutory subsection sets forth a maximum sentence of twenty years, one year shorter than the twenty-one-year sentence Mr. Daniels received. Thus, if Apprendi were applied to his case on collateral review, Mr. Daniels would be resentenced within the lower twenty-year maximum on the drug charge. See Jones,
Under AEDPA, the rule of Apprendi is not applicable to second or successive habeas motions unless and until it has been “made applicable to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court,” as required by 28 U.S.C. § 2255. In Browning, we interpreted the phrase “made applicable ... by the Supreme Court” to require a specific collateral application by the Court, or words to that effect, and noted the Court has been silent with regard to collateral application of Apprendi.
If AEDPA’s requirements are applied to Mr. Daniels’ application, his petition to assert an Apprendi claim must be denied. He argues, however, that because this is his first section 2255 habeas application after AEDPA’s enactment, and because he could meet the pre-AEDPA standard for raising an Apprendi claim in a section 2255 second or successive habeas petition, ap
Mr. Daniels filed his prior section 2255 petitions in 1991 and 1993, before section 2255 was amended by AEDPA in 1996. According to Mr. Daniels, when those earlier petitions were filed a prisoner could present a new legal claim in a second or successive petition under section 2255 if he could show both sufficient “cause” for his failure to raise the claim, i.e., “that the factual or legal basis for [the] claim was not reasonably available” earlier, and “actual prejudice” as a result of the claimed legal error. McCleskey v. Zant,
The government, on the other hand, asserts that applying the AEDPA standard will have no actual retroactive effect because Mr. Daniels could not have satisfied the pre-AEDPA cause and prejudice test to excuse his earlier failure to raise the claim. The government further contends AEDPA’s changes were procedural rather than substantive and thus constitute an exception to the usual retroactivity analysis. Finally, the government argues that, even assuming AEDPA altered the substantive standards under which we consider Mr. Daniels’ application, there can be no impermissible retroactive effect because Mr. Daniels did not reasonably rely on the continued validity of the old law at the time he filed his initial habeas petition.
We hold, first, that AEDPA’s purely procedural “gatekeeping” requirements are applicable to all petitioners seeking to file post-AEDPA second or successive ha-beas applications, regardless of when their initial habeas petitions were filed. We then assess the substantive requirements for raising claims based on new rules of criminal procedure before and after AED-PA. Ultimately, we conclude there is no retroactive effect in applying post-AEDPA substantive standards to Mr. Daniels.
II
POST-AEDPA PROCEDURAL REQUIREMENTS
The AEDPA amendments changed both procedural and substantive aspects of federal habeas law. See In re Minarik,
When a case implicates a federal statute enacted after the events in suit, the court’s first task is to determine whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute’s proper reach. If Congress has done so, of course, there is no need to resort to judicial default rules. When, however, the statute contains no such express command, the court must determine whether the new statute would have retroactive effect, i.e., whether it would impair rights a party possessed when he acted, increase a party’s liability for past conduct, or impose new duties with respect to transactions already completed. If the statute would operate retroactively, our traditional presumption teaches that it does not govern absent clear congressional intent favoring such a result.
Landgraf v. USI Film Prod.,
With regard to the potential retroactivity of AEDPA, the Supreme Court considered the first part of the retroactivity inquiry in Lindh v. Murphy,
The holdings in Lindh and Slack were based on the Court’s determination, by negative implication, that Congress did not intend AEDPA to apply retroactively to cases pending at the time the Act was passed. Because that determination paralleled the traditional presumption against retroactivity, the Court relied upon basic rules of statutory interpretation to discern Congress’ intention, rather than seeking the explicit Congressional guidance required to apply a statute retroactively.
We agree with those courts of appeals holding that reasoning based solely on Lindh and Slack does not reflect the unambiguous Congressional intent required to overcome the presumption against statutory retroactivity if retroactive effect is present in a particular case. See Mueller
Where the “statute contains no [explicit Congressional] command, the court must determine whether the new statute would have retroactive effect” for a particular case under the standard set out in Landgraf,
It is clearly proper to apply AEDPA’s procedural framework to all second or successive habeas applications filed after the Act’s effective date. The presumption against retroactivity contains a well-established exception for rules of procedure, since procedural rules “regulate secondary rather than primary conduct” and avoid attaching new legal consequences to earlier actions. Landgraf,
Ill
PRE-AEDPA SUBSTANTIVE REQUIREMENTS
The Landgraf retroactivity analysis focuses on whether a change in law “would impair rights a party possessed when he acted, increase a party’s liability for past conduct, or impose new duties with respect to transactions already completed.”
The traditional pre-AEDPA test for legal claims raised in a second or successive habeas encompassed two separate inquiries, asking first whether the new claim was procedurally defaulted as an “abuse of the writ” because it was not raised in earlier petitions, and then, if the claim was not defaulted because it was based on a new and hence previously unavailable rule of law, asking whether the new rule of law would be retroactively applied to that claim under Teague v. Lane,
Abuse of the Writ
Prior to AEDPA’s amendments, 28 U.S.C. § 2244 provided that prisoners could raise only new legal or factual claims in a second or subsequent habeas petition and then only if “the applicant [had] not on the earlier application deliberately withheld the newly asserted ground or otherwise abused the writ.” McCleskey,
A petitioner must first show “cause” for his failure to raise the legal claim in an earlier petition. Habeas petitioners may not choose to withhold claims for disposition in later proceedings, and even negligence in discovering a claim will not excuse a delay. Instead, a petitioner must show that his efforts to raise the claim at earlier stages were “impeded” by “some objective factor external to the defense,” for example, where “the factual or legal basis for a claim was not reasonably available to counsel” during earlier proceedings. McCleskey,
When controlling law changes after earlier review has been completed, a petitioner may be able to demonstrate that the new legal claim was “not reasonably available” under the old prevailing standard. Changes in law do not automatically constitute cause, however: “even if the law has changed since the earlier petition [a petitioner] also must show that he or his , attorney reasonably should not have been aware of the possibility or legal basis for such a claim.” Coleman v. Saffle,
It can be difficult to define exactly when a claim becomes “available” to counsel. As the Court explained in Reed:
It is in the nature of our legal system that legal concepts, including constitutional concepts, develop slowly, finding partial acceptance in some courts while meeting rejection in others. Despite the fact that a constitutional concept may ultimately enjoy general acceptance, ... when the concept is in its embryonic stage, it will, by hypothesis, be rejected by most courts.
While the cause inquiry continues to analyze whether a claim was “reasonably available” prior to a change in law, the Supreme Court narrowed the broad Reed “novelty” test in Bousley v. United States,
If a petitioner succeeds in showing cause for failure to raise the new legal claim, he must then demonstrate “ ‘actual prejudice’ resulting from the errors of which he complains.” McCleskey,
The burden of showing prejudice is not an easy one. As a rule, the petitioner “must shoulder the burden of showing, not merely that the errors at his trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage, infecting his entire trial with error of constitutional dimensions.” Id. at 170,
Teague Retroactivity Inquiry
Under the pre-AEDPA standard, a petitioner who manages to surmount the
The first step in the Teague analysis is to ask whether the holding of a particular case constitutes a “new rule” for purposes of retroactivity. The Court has explained that
[i]t is admittedly often difficult to determine when a case announces a new rule, and we do not attempt to define the spectrum of what may or may not constitute a new rule for retroactivity purposes. In general, however, a case announces a new rule when it breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the States or the Federal Government.
Teague,
Teague held that, in general, “new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the new rules are announced.”
Mr. Daniels contends Teague is inapplicable to his case because it was decided in the context of a challenge to state confinement under section 2254 and neither the Supreme Court nor this court has ever applied Teague’s antiretroactivity rule to a federal prisoner’s petition under section 2255. See Talk,
The Supreme Court has described several practical considerations supporting the need for finality in federal criminal cases. For instance, “when a habeas petitioner succeeds in obtaining a new trial, the erosion of memory and dispersion of witnesses that occur with the passage of time prejudice the government and diminish the chances of a reliable criminal adjudication.” McCleskey,
Those courts of appeals that have addressed the relationship between Teague and section 2255 articulate further reasons for applying the nonretroactivity rule to federal petitions. First, although Teague arose in the context of a section 2254 petition, its analysis relied on earlier opinions by Justice Harlan that considered “cases presenting collateral challenges to federal convictions under § 2255” and “did not ‘propose to make any distinction, for retroactivity purposes, between state and federal prisoners seeking collateral relief ” Van Daalwyk v. United States,
[T]he reason the Supreme Court expressly clarified the principles governing retroactivity on collateral review was not to limit the doctrine to state convictions, but to develop a principle that would allow more consistency in results. Injecting a federal/state dichotomy into the picture would defeat rather than further the goal of consistency.
Gilberti v. United States,
Overlap Between Two Inquiries
As explained above, prior to AEDPA a petitioner like Mr. Daniels who wished to raise a new rule of constitutional law in a second or successive habeas petition first had to overcome the “cause and prejudice” test for abuse of the writ in order to raise his claim, and then had to show the new rule could be applied retroactively to that claim under Teague. While we have discussed each test separately, there is a significant amount of overlap between the two inquiries.
A showing of cause to excuse procedural default requires that a new rule be so novel that it was not reasonably available for argument in the past. See Reed,
Before AEDPA, therefore, a new rule would be applied collaterally to a second or successive habeas petition only if it met one of Teague’s two exceptions. If pre-AEDPA law is applied to Mr. Daniels’ habeas application, he could succeed in raising his Apprendi claim in only one situation: if the new rule is novel enough to constitute “cause” under the cause and prejudice test and also fits one of the two exceptions to Teague’s presumption against retroactivity. In any other situation, either the claim itself would be procedurally defaulted or the new rule would be inapplicable as Teague-barred.
IV
POST-AEDPA SUBSTANTIVE REQUIREMENTS
AEDPA’s amendments to 28 U.S.C. § 2244 made no mention of applying either the cause-and-prejudice test or a Teague analysis to applications to file second or subsequent federal habeas petitions. Instead, section 2244(b)(2)(A) now provides that such petitions will not be granted unless they rely upon a “new rule of constitutional law, made applicable to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.” As explained in Part I, under this standard, Mr. Daniels cannot succeed in filing a successive habeas petition based upon Apprendi. He argues, therefore, that applying the AEDPA standard takes away his earlier right to raise an Apprendi claim. While we determine here that the AEDPA standard is indeed a new inquiry, rather than a codification of the previous two-part test, we conclude this change in substantive requirements works no impermissible retroactive effect because the result is the same under either standard.
AEDPA Replaces Both Teague and Cause and Prejudice Test
As a rule, “[i]t is not unusual for Congress to codify earlier precedent in the habeas context.” Williams,
On one hand, AEDPA places an emphasis upon nonretroactivity resembling Teag-ue’s bar on retroactive application. For example, the post-AEDPA requirements for review of state convictions command reliance upon “clearly established law,” which Justice Stevens has suggested is the “functional equivalent” of Teague’s antire-
Because there is no reason to believe that Congress intended to require federal courts to ask both whether a rule sought on habeas is “new” under Teag-ue — which remains the law — and also whether it is “clearly established” under AEDPA, it seems safe to assume that Congress had congruent concepts in mind.
Id. at 379-80,
On the other hand, AEDPA clearly did not adopt the Teague doctrine wholesale. More specifically, AEDPA tightens application of the presumption against retroac-tivity of new constitutional rules by limiting it to situations in which the Supreme Court itself has declared that the new law should apply. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1) (in state context, applying clearly established federal law “as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States”); 28 U.S.C. § 2255 at para. 8 (in federal context, requiring that new rules of constitutional law be “made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court”); see also Browning,
Turning to the other of the two pre-AEDPA tests, courts have been quick to note that AEDPA does not explicitly mention cause and prejudice. The statute’s silence on cause and prejudice could lead to two very different conclusions, however: either the earlier test has disappeared completely in light of AEDPA or it survives AEDPA as an independent doctrine that must be applied in addition to the AEDPA standard. Those courts that have specifically addressed the relationship between AEDPA and the cause-and-prejudice test have assumed that AEDPA replaces the former test. See, e.g., In re Jones,
After careful consideration of the questions involved, we are persuaded AEDPA replaces the traditional two-part analysis for second and successive motions seeking to raise new constitutional claims with a single, clear requirement: the motion must rely on “a new rule of constitutional law, made applicable to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable.” 28 U.S.C. § 2255 at para. 8. Significantly, we find in 28 U.S.C. § 2244 partial support for the idea that Congress intended to replace the cause-and-prejudice test with the new requirements of the AEDPA regime. Under the former test, there may be cause for failure to raise a claim in one of two situations. The first is a new rule of law. The second is newly discovered evidence that reasonably could not have been known at the time of the first filing and that sheds important new light on the petitioner’s case.
A claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254 that was not presented in a prior application shall be dismissed unless—
(A) the applicant shows that the claim relies on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to eases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable; or
(B)(i) the factual predicate for the claim could not have been discovered previously through the exercise of due diligence; and
(ii) the facts underlying the claim, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that, but for constitutional error, no reasonable factfinder would have found the applicant guilty of the underlying offense.
This language arguably parallels the two options for establishing cause under the pre-AEDPA test. Section 2255 is similar, requiring that “a second or successive motion must be certified as provided in section 2244 by a panel of the appropriate court of appeals to contain” either newly discovered evidence or new constitutional law. 28 U.S.C. § 2255 at para. 8. Both sections differ from the traditional cause standard in that a new law must be both “constitutional” and “made applicable to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court.” Still, the close parallel between the old and the new standards supports the argument that Congress intended the cause-and-prejudice analysis to be replaced by AEDPA.
Our determination that AEDPA’s new provisions wholly and intentionally replace the concept of cause is further bolstered by the often-overlooked requirement that a new rule of constitutional law made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court must have been previously unavailable. 28 U.S.C. § 2255 at para. 8. The “previously unavailable” language is often dropped from dis-
With respect to the “prejudice” portion of the test, it is fully embodied in section 2244(b)(2)(B)(ii), which governs newly raised factual claims. As for section 2244(b)(2)(A), governing new rules of constitutional law, we have already concluded that AEDPA incorporates a Teague analysis. The second Teague exception speaks of “watershed” new rules of criminal procedure. This Teague exception applies to “those new procedures without which the likelihood of an accurate conviction is seriously diminished.” Teague,
Despite our conclusion that AEDPA does indeed replace the old cause-and-prejudice and Teague standards with a ■new requirement that a rule be made applicable to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, the result for Mr. Daniels is the same under either regime. As explained below, there is no actual retroactive effect in applying the new AED-PA standard to Mr. Daniels.
No Retroactive Effect as Applied
This case involves a federal prisoner seeking to rely upon a constitutionally based new rule of criminal, procedure in a second or successive habeas petition under section 2255. Our discussion of the pre-AEDPA two-part test for abuse of the writ and retroactive application of law concluded with the observation that such petitioners would succeed only if the rule is novel enough to constitute “cause” and the new law fits the second Teague exception for “watershed” new rules of criminal procedure that seriously affect the fundamental accuracy of a proceeding. AEDPA’s new standard undeniably alters the legal landscape in the sense that only the Supreme Court may now declare a rule of law applicable to second or successive motions. Teague remains controlling law, however, see Williams,
y
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Mr. Daniels’ request for permission to file a successive habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 is DENIED.
Notes
. In Hatch v. Oklahoma,
. Some decisions of the federal courts of appeals express difficulty determining which step should be applied first. The Supreme Court appears to have definitively answered that question in Lambrix v. Singletary,
. The government bears the initial burden of raising this presumption, and only then will the petitioner be asked to demonstrate cause and prejudice. McCleskey v. Zant,
. In fact, on direct appeal Mr. Daniels did raise an objection to the use of a quantity enhancement for his sentence, arguing the enhancement was invalid because drug quantity had not been specified in his indictment. See United States v. Ware,
. Teague was a plurality opinion, but its conclusions have since been approved by a majority of the Court. See, e.g., Penry v. Lynaugh,
. In Williams, Justice Stevens authored the majority opinion for all but the subsection on Teague discussed here. Justice O'Connor’s concurrence provides the court's majority for that subsection. See Williams, 529 U.S. at 402-13,
. Federal courts considering whether Appren-di meets the second Teague exception have ruled both ways. See, e.g., United States v. Sanders,
. There is also a narrow catch-all exception which would grant habeas relief any time "a constitutional violation has probably resulted in the conviction of one who is actually innocent,” whether or not the cause standard has technically been met. Murray v. Carrier,
. The substitution of a single standard under AEDPA in place of the earlier two-part inquiry raises the possibility that it has become easier for petitioners to obtain review of second or subsequent habeas applications after AEDPA. That result would be inconsistent with Congress' stated intent in enacting AED-PA to "curb the abuse of the statutory writ of habeas corpus.” Rodriguez v. Bay State Corr'l Ctr.,
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I continue to adhere to the views expressed in my dissenting opinion in Browning v. United States,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join the dissent insofar as I, too, adhere to the views expressed in the dissenting opinion in Browning v. United States,
