Page:Jones v. Hendrix.pdf/71

Rh bar in §2255(h).

In other words, as I see it, the negative inference that the majority draws today rests on nothing—and certainly nothing that actually derives from Congress’s intent. Nothing in the text of §2255, background principles concerning habeas relief, or AEDPA’s enactment history compels (or even supports) the conclusion that Congress intended to completely foreclose claims like Jones’s. And it is especially perverse to read the statute to lead to that result when doing so gives rise to legally dissonant, arbitrary, and untenable outcomes. So, the majority’s “straightforward” determination that this statute does preclude a prisoner in Jones’s position from filing a successive petition to assert a legal innocence claim (which it reaches by refusing to follow the procedural norm that would have correctly framed the issue as a matter of congressional intent relative to clear-statement principles) appears to stem from the Court’s own views concerning finality, not the will of Congress.

Ultimately, of course, this all begs the question of how (and whether) Congress will respond to the Court’s systematic neutering of the balanced postconviction processes that the Legislature has established. It seems to me that today’s opinion—which unjustifiably closes off all avenues for certain defendants to secure meaningful consideration of their innocence claims—creates an opening for Congress to step in and fix this problem.