While AEDPA imposed these and other new restrictions on Section 2255, it did not alter Section 2255(e)’s saving clause. Courts have debated the utility of the saving clause both before and after AEDPA, as discussed in the following section.
Background of Jones v. Hendrix
The Jones case tees up for resolution a split among the federal courts of appeals on when the saving clause is available, or what constitutes an “inadequate” and “ineffective” Section 2255 remedy. In 2000, a jury convicted Marcus DeAngelo Jones of, as relevant here, two counts of possessing a firearm as a felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Jones raised multiple unsuccessful Section 2255 challenges to his conviction, the last of which resulted in the Supreme Court restricting him from filing future post-conviction motions.
In 2019, the Supreme Court decided Rehaif v. United States. In Rehaif, the Court held that to convict someone under Section 922(g), the government must prove that a defendant knew both that he had a prohibited status and that he possessed a firearm. Rehaif overturned Eighth Circuit precedent on Section 922(g), which held that the government did not need to prove that a defendant knew of his prohibited status. Appellate courts disagree as to whether the Supreme Court made Rehaif retroactive.
Jones sought to challenge his conviction under Rehaif. He could not do so through Section 2255, because a new rule of statutory interpretation is not one of the two exceptions to Section 2255’s bar on second or successive applications, codified at Sections 2255(h)(1) and (2). Jones accordingly filed a habeas corpus petition under Section 2241. He contended that he was “actually innocent” of his conviction for being a felon in possession of a firearm because he did not know of his prohibited status. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed Jones’s petition.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, ruling that being precluded from filing a Section 2255 motion does not make the Section 2255 remedy inadequate or ineffective; thus, Jones could not access Section 2241 via the saving clause. The court reasoned that the pertinent question under the saving clause is whether a prisoner could have previously raised an argument under Section 2255, not whether the argument would have succeeded. Applied to the facts of Jones’s case, the court held that Jones could have raised a Rehaif-like argument in his initial Section 2255 motion, even though circuit precedent was against him. Upon having his motion denied, Jones could have further sought en banc or Supreme Court review of his claim. The court also held that Section 2255(h)’s narrow exceptions to the bar on successive Section 2255 motions did not allow for claims based on changes in statutory interpretation. The court also ruled that denying Jones relief did not violate the Constitution’s Suspension Clause because a Rehaif-like claim was not within the “core purpose of habeas” as it existed in 1789.
Arguments Before the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court granted Jones’s petition for a writ of certiorari to resolve the split among the federal appellate courts and to address “whether federal inmates who did not[—]because established circuit precedent stood firmly against them[—]challenge their convictions on the ground that the statute of conviction did not criminalize their activity may apply for habeas relief under § 2241 after this Court later makes clear in a retroactively applicable decision that the circuit precedent was wrong and that they are legally innocent of the crime of conviction.” At least one source describes the arguments before the Supreme Court in Jones as coming from three directions. First, Jones contends that the Eighth Circuit’s reading of Section 2255 rendered the saving clause superfluous, and that the decision violated the Suspension Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Eighth Amendment.
Second, the United States Solicitor General appears on behalf of the respondent, the warden of Jones’s prison. While not supporting Jones’s habeas application, the Solicitor General agrees with Jones that the
