FELKER v. TURPIN, WARDEN
No. 95-8836 (A-890)
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued June 3, 1996-Decided June 28, 1996
518 U.S. 651
Henry P. Monaghan argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were Stephen C. Bayliss, Mary Elizabeth Wells, and Mark Evan Olive.
Susan V. Boleyn, Senior Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the briefs were Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General, Mary Beth Westmoreland, Deputy Attorney General, Paula K. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, and Paige Reese Whitaker, Assistant Attorney General.
Solicitor General Days argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae. With him on the brief were Acting Assistant Attorney General Keeney, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, James A. Feldman, Malcolm L. Stewart, Robert J. Erickson, and David S. Kris.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Washington Legal Foundation et al. by Ronald D. Maines, Paul G. Cassell, Daniel J. Popeo, and Paul D. Kamenar; and for Senator Orrin G. Hatch, pro se, et al.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the State of Alabama et al. by Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General of Ohio, Jeffrey S. Sutton, State Solicitor, and Stuart A. Cole, Stuart W. Harris, and Jon C. Walden, Assistant Attorneys General, Dan Morales, Attorney General of Texas, Jorge Vega, First Assistant Attorney General, Drew T. Durham, Deputy Attorney General, and Margaret Portman Griffey, John Jacks, and Dana E. Parker, Assistant Attorneys General, Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General of California, George Williamson, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Donald E. De Nicola, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Dane R. Gillette, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, Attorney General of Alabama, Grant Woods, Attorney General of Arizona, Gale A. Norton, Attorney General of Colorado, John M. Bailey, Chief State‘s Attorney of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady, Attorney General of Delaware, Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, Margery S. Bronster, Attorney General of Hawaii, Allan G. Lance, Attorney General of Idaho, Jim Ryan, Attorney General of Illinois, A. B. Chandler III, Attorney General of Kentucky, Scott Harshbarger, Attorney General of Massachusetts, Mike Moore, Attorney General of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon,
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Title I of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Act) works substantial changes to chapter 153 of
I
On a night in 1976, petitioner approached Jane W. in his car as she got out of hers. Claiming to be lost and looking for a party nearby, he used a series of deceptions to induce Jane to accompany him to his trailer home in town. Peti-
Petitioner was paroled four years later. On November 23, 1981, he met Joy Ludlam, a cocktail waitress, at the lounge where she worked. She was interested in changing jobs, and petitioner used a series of deceptions involving offering her a job at “The Leather Shoppe,” a business he owned, to induce her to visit him the next day. The last time Joy was seen alive was the evening of the next day. Her dead body was discovered two weeks later in a creek. Forensic analysis established that she had been beaten, raped, and sodomized, and that she had been strangled to death before being left in the creek. Investigators discovered hair resembling petitioner‘s on Joy‘s body and clothes, hair resembling Joy‘s in petitioner‘s bedroom, and clothing fibers like those in Joy‘s coat in the hatchback of petitioner‘s car. One of petitioner‘s neighbors reported seeing Joy‘s car at petitioner‘s house the day she disappeared.
A jury convicted petitioner of murder, rape, aggravated sodomy, and false imprisonment. Petitioner was sentenced to death on the murder charge. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed petitioner‘s conviction and death sentence, Felker v. State, 252 Ga. 351, 314 S. E. 2d 621, and we denied certiorari, 469 U. S. 873 (1984). A state trial court denied collateral relief, the Georgia Supreme Court declined to issue a certificate of probable cause to appeal the denial, and we again denied certiorari. Felker v. Zant, 502 U.S. 1064 (1992).
Petitioner then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, alleging that (1) the State‘s evidence was insuffi-
The State scheduled petitioner‘s execution for the period May 2-9, 1996. On April 29, 1996, petitioner filed a second petition for state collateral relief. The state trial court denied this petition on May 1, and the Georgia Supreme Court denied certiorari on May 2.
On April 24, 1996, the President signed the Act into law. Title I of this Act contained a series of amendments to existing federal habeas corpus law. The provisions of the Act pertinent to this case concern second or successive habeas corpus applications by state prisoners. Section 106(b) specifies the conditions under which claims in second or successive applications must be dismissed, amending
“(1) A claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under
section 2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed.“(2) 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 cases 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.”
On May 2, 1996, petitioner filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit a motion for stay of execution and a motion for leave to file a second or successive federal habeas corpus petition under
The Court of Appeals denied both motions the day they were filed, concluding that petitioner‘s claims had not been presented in his first habeas petition, that they did not meet the standards of
II
We first consider to what extent the provisions of Title I of the Act apply to petitions for habeas corpus filed as original matters in this Court pursuant to
A
Section 2244(b)(3)(E) prevents this Court from reviewing a court of appeals order denying leave to file a second ha-
Yerger‘s holding is best understood in the light of the availability of habeas corpus review at that time. Section 14 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorized all federal courts, including this Court, to grant the writ of habeas corpus when prisoners were “in custody, under or by colour of the authority of the United States, or [were] committed for trial before some court of the same.”
The Act of 1867 also expanded our statutory appellate jurisdiction to authorize appeals to this Court from the final decision of any circuit court on a habeas petition. 14 Stat. 386. This enactment changed the result of Barry v. Mercein, 5 How. 103 (1847), in which we had held that the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not authorize this Court to conduct appellate review of circuit court habeas decisions. However, in 1868, Congress revoked the appellate jurisdiction it had given in 1867, repealing “so much of the [Act of 1867] as authorizes an appeal from the judgment of the circuit court to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
In Yerger, we considered whether the Act of 1868 deprived us not only of power to hear an appeal from an inferior court‘s decision on a habeas petition, but also of power to entertain a habeas petition to this Court under § 14 of the Act of 1789. We concluded that the 1868 Act did not affect our power to entertain such habeas petitions. We explained that the 1868 Act‘s text addressed only jurisdiction over appeals conferred under the Act of 1867, not habeas jurisdiction conferred under the Acts of 1789 and 1867. We rejected the suggestion that the Act of 1867 had repealed our habeas power by implication. Yerger, 8 Wall., at 105. Repeals by implication are not favored, we said, and the continued exercise of original habeas jurisdiction was not “repugnant” to a prohibition on review by appeal of circuit court habeas judgments. Id.
Turning to the present case, we conclude that Title I of the Act has not repealed our authority to entertain original habeas petitions, for reasons similar to those stated in Yerger. No provision of Title I mentions our authority to entertain original habeas petitions; in contrast, § 103 amends the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure to bar consider-
This conclusion obviates one of the constitutional challenges raised. The critical language of
B
We consider next how Title I affects the requirements a state prisoner must satisfy to show he is entitled to a writ of habeas corpus from this Court. Title I of the Act has changed the standards governing our consideration of habeas petitions by imposing new requirements for the granting of relief to state prisoners. Our authority to grant habeas relief to state prisoners is limited by
Section 2244(b) addresses second or successive habeas petitions.
III
Next, we consider whether the Act suspends the writ of habeas corpus in violation of
The writ of habeas corpus known to the Framers was quite different from that which exists today. As we explained previously, the first Congress made the writ of habeas corpus available only to prisoners confined under the authority of the United States, not under state authority. Supra, at 659-660; see Ex parte Dorr, 3 How. 103 (1844). The class of judicial actions reviewable by the writ was more restricted as well. In Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193 (1830), we denied a petition for a writ of habeas corpus from a prisoner “detained in prison by virtue of the judgment of a court, which court possesses general and final jurisdiction in criminal cases.” Id., at 202. Reviewing the English common law which informed American courts’ understanding of the scope of the writ, we held that “[t]he judgment of the circuit court in a criminal case is of itself evidence of its own legality,” and that we could not “usurp that power by the instrumentality of the writ of habeas corpus.” Id., at 207.
It was not until 1867 that Congress made the writ generally available in “all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States.” Supra, at 659. And it was not until well into this century that this Court interpreted that provision to allow a final judgment of conviction in a state court to be collaterally attacked on habeas. See, e. g., Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101 (1942) (per curiam); Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S. 443 (1953). But we assume,
The Act requires a habeas petitioner to obtain leave from the court of appeals before filing a second habeas petition in the district court. But this requirement simply transfers from the district court to the court of appeals a screening function which would previously have been performed by the district court as required by
The 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.” In McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467 (1991), 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.” Id., at 489. 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
IV
We have answered the questions presented by the petition for certiorari in this case, and we now dispose of the petition
“A petition seeking the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus shall comply with the requirements of
28 U. S. C. §§ 2241 and2242 , and in particular with the provision in the last paragraph of§ 2242 requiring a statement of the ‘reasons for not making application to the district court of the district in which the applicant is held.’ If the relief sought is from the judgment of a state court, the petition shall set forth specifically how and wherein the petitioner has exhausted available remedies in the state courts or otherwise comes within the provisions of28 U. S. C. § 2254(b) . To justify the granting of a writ of habeas corpus, the petitioner must show exceptional circumstances warranting the exercise of the Court‘s discretionary powers and must show that adequate relief cannot be obtained in any other form or from any other court. These writs are rarely granted.”
Reviewing petitioner‘s claims here, they do not materially differ from numerous other claims made by successive habeas petitioners which we have had occasion to review on stay applications to this Court. Neither of them satisfies the requirements of the relevant provisions of the Act, let alone the requirement that there be “exceptional circumstances” justifying the issuance of the writ.
* * *
The petition for writ of certiorari is dismissed for want of jurisdiction. The petition for an original writ of habeas corpus is denied.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE BREYER join, concurring.
While I join the Court‘s opinion, I believe its response to the argument that the Act has deprived this Court of appel-
As the Court correctly concludes, the Act does not divest this Court of jurisdiction to grant petitioner relief by issuing a writ of habeas corpus. It does, however, except the category of orders entered by the courts of appeals pursuant to
Accordingly, there are at least three reasons for rejecting petitioner‘s argument that the limited exception violates Article III, § 2. First, if we retain jurisdiction to review the gatekeeping orders pursuant to the All Writs Act—and petitioner has not suggested otherwise—such orders are not immune from direct review. Second, by entering an appropriate interlocutory order, a court of appeals may provide this Court with an opportunity to review its proposed disposition of a motion for leave to file a second or successive habeas application. Third, in the exercise of our habeas corpus jurisdiction, we may consider earlier gatekeeping orders entered by the court of appeals to inform our judgments and provide the parties with the functional equivalent of direct review. In this case the Court correctly denies the writ of habeas corpus because petitioner‘s claims do not satisfy the requirements of our pre-Act jurisprudence or the requirements of the Act, including the standards governing the court of appeals’ gatekeeping function.
JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS and JUSTICE BREYER join, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion. The Court holds today that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996,