Opinion in Gonzalez v. Crosby
on Jun 23, 2005 at 1:09 pm
The Supreme Court held today (in an opinion by Justice Scalia) that all Rule 60(b) motions for relief from the judgment of a district court denying a habeas petition are not automatically prohibited “second or successive” habeas petitions for purposes of Section 2244(b) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Rather, the Court held, motions that do not seek to attack the district court’s disposition of a claim on the merits, but instead address only the integrity of the habeas proceeding, are not the equivalent of a second or successive petition. However, while the majority concluded that Gonzalez’s Rule 60(b) motion — which attacked the district court’s ruling that his habeas petition was time-barred in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Artuz v. Bennett — was not a second or successive habeas petition, it nonetheless affirmed the denial of the Rule 60(b) motion. Justice Breyer wrote a one-paragraph concurring opinion to clarify that he joined the majority’s opinion insofar as it defined a proper Rule 60(b) motion as “attack[ing] . . . some defect in the integrity of the federal habeas proceeding.”
Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Souter, dissented from the Court’s opinion. They agreed with the majority’s premise that all Rule 60(b) motions are not necessarily second or successive habeas petitions but disagreed with the majority’s disposition of Gonzalez’s motion.
You can read my pre-argument write-up of the case, which contains a detailed description of the facts, decision below, and the parties’ arguments here.
Justice Scalia begins the majority’s discussion by noting that Section 2244(b)’s prohibition on second or successive habeas applications applies only when an “application” for habeas relief is at issue. An “application,” the majority continues, contains “claims” — which, for purposes of Section 2244(b), are “an asserted basis for relief from a state court’s judgment.” Thus, the majority explains, a Rule 60(b) motion that seeks to assert a “claim” attacking the federal court’s disposition of a previous claim on the merits is a prohibited second or successive habeas petition. (The Court explains in a footnote that a disposition “on the merits” does not, in this context, include dismissals for, inter alia, failure to exhaust, procedural default, or statute-of-limitations.)
By contrast, when a Rule 60(b) motion does not contain a “claim,” but instead addresses some non-merits aspect of the original federal habeas proceedings, the motion does not run afoul of AEDPA’s prohibition on second or successive petitions. The majority emphasized that several characteristics of Rule 60(b) motions — particularly the limitations imposed by the Rule itself and extensive precedent holding that Rule 60(b) motions are appropriate only in “extraordinary circumstances” — would forestall any “avalanche of postjudgment motions.”
Addressing the merits of Gonzalez’s motion, the majority rejected Gonzalez’s argument that the Court’s decision in Artuz constituted the kind of “extraordinary circumstances” required by Rule 60(b). First, the majority explained, the district court’s “interpretation was by all appearances correct under the Eleventh Circuit’s then-prevailing interpretation” of the statute of limitations. “It is hardly extraordinary that subsequently, after petitioner’s case was no longer pending, this Court arrived at a different interpretation.” Second, the majority emphasized what it regarded as Gonzalez’s lack of diligence in pursuing review of the statute of limitations issue, noting both that Gonzalez had not sought further review of the issue and that cert. was granted in Artuz just eight days after Gonzalez’s COA was denied (viz., well within the ninety-day deadline for Gonzalez to seek cert.).
In his dissent, Justice Stevens disputes the majority’s decision to reject Gonzalez’s Rule 60(b) motion on the merits, contending that the merits of his motion are not before the Court and, indeed, have not been fully briefed. It is the district court’s role, the dissent emphasizes, to address the merits of such a motion in the first place. Justice Stevens further asserts that “the Court underestimates the significance of the fact that petitioner was effectively shut out of federal court” by a procedural ruling that was later determined to be erroneous. Moreover, he notes, in a case such as this — in which a pro se petitioner with at least a colorable underlying constitutional claim did seek to appeal and to seek rehearing en banc — Rule 60(b) relief may be appropriate even if, as a general rule, an intervening change in procedural law would not otherwise suffice.
