Johnson v. Guerrero
Split Score
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This score (0-100) indicates how likely this case is to be reviewed by the Supreme Court based on:
Case Summary
Disposition
Affirmed
The Fifth Circuit, sitting as a panel, denied both panel rehearing and rehearing en banc in a death-penalty habeas case brought by Dexter Johnson. A dissent by Judge Ho argued that the panel’s reliance on prior Fifth Circuit precedent (In re Cathey) misapplies AEDPA by treating new scientific evidence of intellectual disability as a “new rule of constitutional law,” and noted that other circuits disagree, creating an explicit circuit split.
Circuit Split Identified
Legal Issue
Whether a successive habeas applicant asserting an Atkins intellectual-disability claim based on newly available scientific evidence satisfies 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(A) by presenting a “new rule of constitutional law,” or whether such a claim is governed instead by § 2244(b)(2)(B)’s new-facts standard.
Circuit Positions
New scientific evidence of intellectual disability makes an Atkins claim ‘previously unavailable’ and qualifies under § 2244(b)(2)(A) as relying on a new rule of constitutional law.
An Atkins claim based on new scientific evidence does not rely on a new rule of constitutional law; it is a new-facts claim governed by § 2244(b)(2)(B) and therefore usually barred.
Conflict Summary
The Fifth and Ninth Circuits treat new scientific evidence supporting an Atkins claim as rendering the claim ‘previously unavailable’ under § 2244(b)(2)(A), effectively characterizing the claim as relying on a new rule of constitutional law. The Fourth and Eleventh Circuits reject that approach, holding that Atkins was established law and that new evidence merely presents new facts, which must meet § 2244(b)(2)(B)’s much stricter standard.