Criminal Procedure — Habeas corpus — AEDPA

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U.S. Supreme Court

Criminal

Criminal Procedure — Habeas corpus — AEDPA

Actual innocence, if proved, is an exception to expiration of the AEDPA statute of limitations.

Perkins, who waited nearly six years from the date of the 2002 affidavit to file his petition, maintains that an actual-innocence plea can overcome AEDPA’s one-year limitations period. This Court’s decisions support his view. The Court has not resolved whether actual-innocence claim, Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390, 404–405, but it has recognized that a prisoner “otherwise subject to defenses of abusive or successive use of the writ may have his federal constitutional claim considered on the merits if he makes a proper showing of actual innocence,” id., at 404.

The Court has applied this “fundamental miscarriage of justice exception” to overcome various procedural defaults, including, as most relevant here, failure to observe state procedural rules, such as filing deadlines. See Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 750. The exception, the Court’s decisions bear out, survived AEDPA’s passage. See, e.g., Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U. S. 538, 558; House, 547 U. S., at 537–538. These decisions “see[k] to balance the societal interests in finality, comity, and conservation of scarce judicial resources with the individual interest in justice that arises in the extraordinary case.” Schlup, 513 U. S., at 324. Sensitivity to the injustice of incarcerating an innocent individual should not abate when the impediment is AEDPA’s statute of limitations.

670 F. 3d 665, vacated and remanded.

12-126 McQuiggin v. Perkins

Ginsburg, J.; Scalia, J., dissenting.