Docket 24-5438
Bowe v. United States
DecidedJan 9, 2026
5-4decision
Source: CourtListener.
Court allows federal prisoners to appeal denials of repeat habeas motions and lets them refile old claims
What it does
The Court holds that it has jurisdiction to review a federal prisoner's request to file a second or successive habeas motion, because the statutory bar on Supreme Court review of such decisions was written for state prisoners' 'applications,' not federal prisoners' 'motions,' and the cross-reference linking the two prisoner categories does not clearly extend that bar. It also holds that a separate rule blocking prisoners from re-raising claims they already raised before applies only to state prisoners, not federal prisoners, based on the specific statutory text used.
Who benefits
Federal prisoners seeking to file second or successive collateral attacks on their convictions or sentences, particularly those whose claims were previously rejected only because of intervening changes in the law.
Who is affected
The federal government's interest in finality of criminal convictions is narrowed, and courts of appeals in circuits that had been applying the state-prisoner old-claim bar to federal prisoners must now change their approach.
Practical impact
Federal prisoners in circuits that previously barred repeat claims already raised in prior habeas motions can now seek authorization for such claims, provided they meet the separate content and timing requirements. Federal prisoners denied authorization to file second or successive motions can now seek Supreme Court review of that denial, unlike state prisoners who remain barred from doing so. The case returns to the Eleventh Circuit to decide under the correct legal standard whether Bowe may proceed with his challenge to his firearm conviction sentence.
Majority reasoning
The majority reasoned that because the Supreme Court has broad certiorari jurisdiction under §1254(1), Congress must speak clearly to strip that jurisdiction, and the narrow cross-reference in §2255(h) to §2244 covers only the procedures by which a panel certifies a filing, not the separate provision barring further review of that certification. The Court found the certiorari-bar provision addresses a different act, actor, and court than what the cross-reference actually describes, so its inclusion is at most ambiguous, and ambiguity cannot satisfy the clear-indication standard from Castro v. United States. On the merits, the majority read the old-claim bar's text as limited to state prisoners because it specifically references habeas applications under §2254, while federal prisoners file motions under §2255, and Congress used different language elsewhere in the same section when it meant to include federal prisoners. The majority rejected the argument that this reading would make part of the federal prisoners' statute superfluous, explaining that Congress repeated a standard verbatim elsewhere for a distinct reason, and it emphasized that repeat claims still face strict content and timing requirements that will screen out nearly all of them.
Dissent reasoning
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, and (as to the jurisdictional portion) Barrett, argued that the Court lacks jurisdiction at all because the certiorari bar is written as a package deal with the panel-rehearing bar, and treating federal prisoners differently from state prisoners on this point is textually implausible and contradicted by decades of unanimous circuit practice and the Court's own past statements, including a prior opinion by the author of today's majority. He argued the majority's clear-statement rule is invented from nothing, unsupported by constitutional avoidance since the Court has already rejected constitutional challenges to these limits, and unsupported by the claim-processing-rule cases the majority cites, since everyone agrees this bar is jurisdictional. On the merits, Gorsuch contended that the old-claim bar is expressly included in the certification standard federal prisoners must satisfy, that reading it out would undermine the 30-day certification deadline and the broader statutory design of stricter limits on repeat filings, and that nothing in AEDPA's history or structure suggests Congress meant to free federal prisoners from restrictions imposed on state prisoners.
Constitutional question
Does a federal law barring appeals of court-of-appeals decisions on repeat habeas filings, and a separate rule barring 'do-over' claims, apply to federal prisoners the same way they apply to state prisoners under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act?
Precedent changed
The Court did not overrule any precedent but clarified and extended the reasoning of Castro v. United States regarding the clear-indication requirement for limiting certiorari jurisdiction.