Major Victory for Finality of Judgments
Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued a major decision on the finality of judgments in Jones v. Hendrix, No. 21-857. The Court rejected an attempt by the petitioner to do “an end-run around AEDPA,” i.e., the limits on collateral review of convictions enacted by Congress in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.
Even more important, the Court has finally rejected the notion that the Suspension Clause of the Constitution requires collateral review of final judgments by courts of general jurisdiction. That clause is limited to the scope of habeas corpus understood at the time, which did not include such review. Congress may authorize such review, of course, but it is fully capable of imposing such limits as deems to be good policy.
We will have more to say on this important decision later.
CJLF’s brief in this case is available here.
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Finality does have a cost. Obviously, in our system, the wheat is separated from the chaff by the heavy use of resources, and so finality has a very practical benefit in our system. However, the specter of a demonstrably innocent person (i.e., because the statute was narrowed in scope) causes harm to the cause of criminal justice. I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I would hope that pardons would be available in these cases.
I expect a path will be found for demonstrably innocent people. A convicted felon with 11 priors who claims he does not know he is a convicted felon does not fall in that category.