SCOTUS, voting 7-2, limits reach of AEDPA’s limit on second habeas petitions in Bannister v. Davis
The Supreme Court handed down a number of opinions this morning, and habeas/criminal procedure fans — or civil procedure fans since habeas actions are technically civil actions — will be excited to see one of the group is Bannister v. Davis, No. 18–6943 (S. Ct. June 1, 2020) (available here). The opinion in Bannister is a notable procedural win for habeas petitioners, and I am intrigued and a bit surprised the ruling came down 7-2 given how long the opinions took to be issued (the case had been argued in December 2019). The opinion for the Court was authored by Justice Kagan, and it starts and ends this way:
A state prisoner is entitled to one fair opportunity to seek federal habeas relief from his conviction. But he may not usually make a “second or successive habeas corpus application.” 28 U.S.C. §2244(b). The question here is whether a motion brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) to alter or amend a habeas court’s judgment qualifies as such a successive petition. We hold it does not. A Rule 59(e) motion is instead part and parcel of the first habeas proceeding….
Our holding means that the Court of Appeals should not have dismissed Banister’s appeal as untimely. Banister properly brought a Rule 59(e) motion in the District Court. As noted earlier, the 30-day appeals clock runs from the disposition of such a motion, rather than from the initial entry of judgment. See supra, at 3. And Banister filed his notice of appeal within that time. The Fifth Circuit reached a contrary conclusion because it thought that Banister’s motion was really a second or successive habeas application, and so did not reset the appeals clock. For all the reasons we have given, that understanding of a Rule 59(e) motion is wrong. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Justice Alito pens a dissent that is joined by Justice Thomas. This dissent, intriguingly, runs the same length as the opinion for the Court, and here are excerpts from how it starts and ends:
If Banister had labeled this motion what it was in substance — another habeas petition — it would have been summarily dismissed under 28 U. S. C. §2244(b)(1). If he had labeled it a motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b), it would also have been subject to dismissal under our decision in Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U.S. 524 (2005). Instead, he gave it a different label, styling it as a motion to alter the judgment under Rule 59(e), and the Court now holds this label makes all the difference.
The question in this case is whether a state prisoner can evade the federal habeas statute’s restrictions on second or successive habeas petitions by affixing a Rule 59(e) label. The answer follows from our decision in Gonzalez, and the answer is no. If a Rule 59(e) motion asserts a habeas claim, the motion functions as a second or successive habeas petition and should be treated as such….
I would hold that a Rule 59(e) motion that constitutes a second or successive habeas petition is subject to §2244(b) and that such a motion does not toll the time to appeal. I therefore conclude that the Fifth Circuit was correct to dismiss Banister’s untimely appeal. Because the Court holds to the contrary, I respectfully dissent.