Supreme Court Limits Habeas Filings Based on New Evidence (1)

The US Supreme Court made it even harder for inmates to challenge their confinement.

In a unanimous ruling by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday, the court broadly interpreted what counts as a “second or successive” habeas petition.

“Incarcerated individuals who seek to challenge their imprisonment through a federal habeas petition are generally afforded one opportunity to do so,” Jackson wrote for the court.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act sets a high bar for state prisoners bringing successive petitions in federal court.

The high bar applies mid-appeal, which is when a trial court denies a filing but prior to an appellate ruling.

Federal courts were split on whether such petitions by state prisoners were generally barred.

When a convicted person requests to bring a subsequent federal habeas challenge, the “road gets rockier,” the court said.

Rivers argued that his filing didn’t qualify as a “second or successive” petition because it was submitted while his appeal to the first habeas petition’s judgment was still pending.

The court said it “does not agree with that proposition,” and that a filing qualifies as “second or successive” based on the existence of a final judgment regarding the first petition, not on the status of an appeal.

Texas state prisoner Danny Rivers was convicted of sexual abuse and possession of child pornography. He asked a federal court to review is claims that his attorney, who was allegedly drunk at trial, provided ineffective assistance of counsel.

The case is Rivers v. Guerrero, U.S., No. 23-1345, 6/12/25.