UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
__________________
No. 96-30668
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Barry Williams,
Petitioner-Appellant,
versus
Burl Cain, Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary; Richard P.
Ieyoub, Attorney General, State of Louisiana,
Respondents-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Louisiana
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July 15, 1997
Before GARWOOD, BENAVIDES, and STEWART, Circuit Judges.
BENAVIDES, Circuit Judge:
This appeal addresses whether the new prior certification
requirement of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of
1996 (“AEDPA” or “the Act”), Pub. L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214
(1996), applies to habeas corpus petitions that were filed in non-
capital cases and were pending on the day the statute was enacted.
See 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3). Concluding that § 2244(b)(3) of the
AEDPA applied to pending petitions, the district court dismissed
the subject petition without prejudice in order for the petitioner
to comply with the Act’s prior certification requirement. For the
reasons that follow, we hold that § 2244(b)(3) of the Act does not
apply to petitions filed in non-capital cases before the AEDPA was
enacted. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is
vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
I. Background
In 1978, the petitioner, Barry Williams, was convicted by a
Louisiana jury of second-degree murder. Williams was sentenced to
life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole or probation
for forty years. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed his
conviction and sentence on direct appeal.
In 1989, Williams filed an application for a writ of habeas
corpus in federal district court raising the same claims that he
raised on direct review in state court. That petition was denied
in April 1990. In 1991, Williams again sought post conviction
relief in state court. Williams claimed that the trial court
erroneously charged the jury and that he was denied his
constitutional right to be present during all stages of the trial.
After an evidentiary hearing, the state trial court denied relief.
The Louisiana Supreme Court denied a supervisory writ.
Williams then filed the subject petition for habeas relief in
federal district court. Although the district court received the
petition on November 1, 1994, it was not stamped “filed” until
April 22, 1996. In the petition, Williams argued that the trial
court issued an erroneous jury instruction and that he was denied
the right to be present at all stages of his trial.
2
After discovering that Williams’s petition was successive, a
magistrate judge issued a report and recommendation concluding that
the petition should be dismissed. The magistrate noted that under
the AEDPA, which was enacted on April 24, 1996, Williams was
required to obtain a certificate from this court before filing a
successive petition.1 Therefore, the magistrate recommended that
Williams’s petition be dismissed without prejudice “pending
appropriate certification by the Court of Appeals.”
Williams responded that “at the time of the filing of the
first federal habeas petition, [he] did not possess [n]or could he
have reasonably obtained the relevant evidence to the claims as
presented in the instant petition.” Williams also objected to the
magistrate’s report and recommendation and argued that the new
provisions of the AEDPA did not apply to his petition. The
district court overruled Williams’s objections, adopted the
magistrate’s report, and dismissed Williams’s petition without
prejudice.2 On June 18, 1996, Williams timely filed his notice of
1
The prior certification requirement of the AEDPA provides:
(3)(A) Before a second or successive application permitted by this
section is filed in district court, the applicant shall move in the
appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district
court to consider the application.
(B) A motion in the court of appeals for an order authorizing the
district court to consider a second or successive application shall
be determined by a three-judge panel of the court of appeals.
(C) The court of appeals may authorize the filing of a second or
successive application only if it determines that the application
makes a prima facie showing that the application satisfies the
requirements of this subsection.
28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3).
2
Alternatively, the magistrate recommended that the district
court dismiss Williams’s petition for failure to exhaust his claims
3
appeal. The district court denied Williams’s application for a
certificate of appealability (“COA”) under the AEDPA.
On December 27, 1996, this court granted Williams’s request
for COA “as to the district court’s application of the successive-
petition provision of the AEDPA to his pending § 2255 motion.” The
parties were directed to brief the issue, and this appeal followed.
II. Discussion
In Lindh v. Murphy, — S. Ct. —, 1997 WL 338568 (June 23,
1997), the Supreme Court clarified the analysis governing the
temporal reach of newly enacted legislation. First, a court must
ask whether new legislation contains a clear and unambiguous
statement of Congress’s intent to apply a new statutory provision
to conduct that occurred before the statute was enacted. Only a
plain statement to this effect will defeat the traditional
presumption against retroactive application of a statute. See id.
at **3-4 & n.4.
In the absence of a plain statement of the legislature’s
intent that a statute be applied retroactively, a court must ask
whether normal rules of statutory construction suggest that a new
provision applies to the case before it. Id. at *4. If normal
rules of statutory construction suggest that a new provision does
in state court. Williams argued in his objections to the
magistrate’s report and recommendation that his claims were
exhausted, and provided appropriate citations to the state court
record. Nonetheless, the district court overruled Williams’s
objections and adopted the magistrate’s report in its entirety.
Because our own independent review of the state court record
establishes that Williams’s claims were indeed exhausted, this
basis for the district court’s decision is vacated.
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not apply to a particular case, the new provision is inapplicable.3
Only where traditional canons of interpretation suggest that
a new statutory provision applies to a pending case is it necessary
for a court to determine whether such application would have a
retroactive effect.4 Because of the unfairness of imposing new
burdens on people “after the fact,” a statute that has a
retroactive effect should not be applied to conduct that occurred
before the statute was enacted. Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 265-73. On
the other hand, if a new statute does not have the disfavored
retroactive effect, a court should apply the law in effect when its
decision is rendered, even though the applicable statute was
enacted after the events that gave rise to the suit. Id. at 273.
Pursuant to the preceding analysis, the Lindh Court applied
the normal rules of statutory interpretation to determine whether
§ 2254(d) of the AEDPA applied to the petitioner’s case. 1997 WL
338568 at **4-8. The Court noted that sections 101-106 of the
AEDPA amend sections 2244 and 2253-2255 of chapter 153 of Title 28
3
See id. (“Although Landgraf’s default rule would deny
application when a retroactive effect would otherwise result, other
construction rules may apply to remove even the possibility of
retroactivity (as by rendering the statutory provision wholly
inapplicable to a particular case)”); id. at *11 (Rehnquist, C.J.,
dissenting) (noting that the majority’s analysis stops after
concluding that traditional canons of statutory interpretation
suggest that the new provisions do not apply).
4
See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 257-64, 280-93,
114 S. Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994) (acknowledging that the
petitioner’s textual argument in favor of application of the new
statutory provisions at issue carried “some force” before declining
to apply the provisions because of the retroactive effect that
would result).
5
of the United States Code, governing all habeas corpus proceedings
in federal courts. Id. at *4 (citing 110 Stat. 1217-21). The
Court also pointed out that section 107 of the AEDPA creates an
entirely new chapter 154, which enacts special rules governing
collateral challenges to state capital proceedings that apply when
states meet certain conditions. Id. (citing 110 Stat. 1221-26).
Finally, the Court recognized that section 107(c) of the AEDPA
explicitly provides that “Chapter 154 ... shall apply to cases
pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act.” Id.
(quoting 110 Stat. 1226).
The negative implication of section 107(c) led the Court to
conclude that “the new provisions of chapter 153 generally apply
only to cases filed after the Act became effective.” Id. at *8.
The only exceptions to the general rule articulated by the Court
were those situations “where chapter 154 otherwise makes select
provisions of chapter 153 applicable to pending cases.” Id. at *4.
Because the petitioner’s case did not implicate an exception to the
general rule announced by the Court, § 2254(d) was held
inapplicable. Id. at *8.
The instant case falls squarely within the general rule
articulated in Lindh. The new successive petition provisions of
the AEDPA are contained in section 106 of the Act, which amends
chapter 153 of Title 28 of the United States Code. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2244(b)(3) (quoted in note 1). Moreover, the subject petition
cannot implicate section 154 because it does not present a
6
collateral challenge to a capital conviction in state court.5
Accordingly, we hold that the prior certification requirement of
the Act does not apply because the petitioner’s application for a
writ of habeas corpus was pending on April 24, 1996, the date the
AEDPA was enacted.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court
is VACATED and this case is REMANDED for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
5
We do not reach whether the prior certification requirement
applies to successive petitions filed prior to the AEDPA’s
enactment in cases otherwise governed by section 107. See 28
U.S.C. § 2262(c) (providing that if a stay of execution expires
under certain articulated circumstances, “no Federal court
thereafter shall have the authority to enter a stay of execution in
the case, unless the court of appeals approves the filing of a
second or successive application under section 2244(b)”).
7