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Rh we could have (and should have) easily concluded that there is no statutory impediment to Jones’s §2255 motion being entertained by a court.

Finally, I believe that the canon of constitutional avoidance also does important work to guide—and constrain—the Court’s interpretation of §2255 in this case. See Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U. S. 678, 689 (2001); cf. Pressley, 430 U. S., at 381–382 (relying on the saving clause to conclude that the District of Columbia’s postconviction statute, which mirrored §2255, was constitutional). The majority’s bottom line, reading “the interplay” between §2255(h) and §2255(e),, is that a person in prison for noncriminal conduct cannot ask a federal court to review the legality of his detention if he has previously filed a §2255 petition. This position is stunning in a country where liberty is a constitutional guarantee and the courts are supposed to be dispensing justice. It also raises hackles under at least two provisions of our founding charter.

First, the Eighth Amendment. There is a nonfrivolous argument that the Constitution’s protection against “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibits the incarceration of innocent individuals. See In re Davis, 557 U. S. 952, 953 (2009) (Stevens, J., concurring) (citing Triestman v. United States, 124 F. 3d 361, 377–380 (CA2 1997)); see also Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 432, n. 2 (1993) (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (“It … may violate the Eighth Amendment to imprison someone who is actually innocent”); Robinson v. California, 370 U. S. 660, 667 (1962). This is not to say that the Eighth Amendment creates a “freestanding entitlement to a second or successive round of postconviction review.” But here Jones seeks a single meaningful opportunity to have a federal court consider his claim of legal innocence.