holding that procedural default rules developed in the habeas corpus context apply in §2255 eases
How later courts described this case
- holding that procedural default rules developed in the habeas corpus context apply in §2255 eases
- concluding that Rule 52(b)’s plain error standard “was intended for use on direct appeal” and “is out of place when a prisoner launches a collateral attack against a criminal conviction after society's legitimate interest in the finality of the judgment has been perfected by the expiration of the time allowed for direct review or by the affirmance of the conviction on appeal”
- holding in a murder case that "the strong uncontradicted evidence of malice in the record, coupled with [the defendant’s] utter failure to come forward with a colorable claim that he acted without malice, disposes of his contention that he suffered ... actual prejudice” from an instructional error that relieved the government of the burden of proving that element
- holding that this is a “significantly higher hurdle than would exist on direct appeal” and requires “not merely that the errors at [Petitioner’s] trial created a possibility of prejudice, but that they worked to his actual and substantial disadvantage” such that they “overcome society’s justified interests in the finality of criminal judgments”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by Charles N. Norris v. United States, 687 F.2d 899 (1982)
At least Frady casts sufficient doubt on the continued vitality of Kaufman to allow us to consider as an original question whether failure to appeal on a ground later raised in a section 2255 motion should bar the motion unless good cause for not appealing is shown.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Dennis v. United States, 957 F. Supp. 779 (1996)
quired of a petitioner who pleaded guilty, announced in United States v. Frady, 456 U.S. 152, 102 S.Ct. 1584, 71 L.Ed.2d 816 (1982), is inapplicable to this ease because the “actual innocence” exception enunciated in Murray v. Carrier, 477 U.S. 478, 106 S.Ct. 2689, 91 L.Ed.2d 397 (1986) (see United States v. Maybeck, 23 F.3d 888 (4th Cir.1994)) is applicable to a § 924(c) violation under Bailey.
Distinguished by United States v. Alzate, 833 F. Supp. 90 (1993)
However, Frady is inapposite to this ease.
Distinguished by Dennis Wayne Williams v. United States, 805 F.2d 1301 (1986)
We think the Frady rationale is inapplicable to this case for two reasons.
Distinguished by United States v. Herbert Baylin, 696 F.2d 1030 (1982)
We think the Frady rationale is inapplicable to this case for two reasons.
The opinion
Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the judgment.
Like Justice Brennan, I believe that the plain-error rule of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52(b) has some applicability in a § 2255 proceeding. In my view, recognizing a federal court’s discretion to redress plain error on collateral review neither nullifies the cause-and-prejudice requirement articulated in Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977), nor disserves the policies underlying that requirement.
*176 Despite the Court’s assertions that Rule 52(b) was intended for use only on direct appeal and that the Court of Appeals ignored “long-established contrary authority,” ante, at 164, I find nothing in the Rule’s seemingly broad language supporting the Court’s restriction of its scope. In fact, the plain-error doctrine is specifically made applicable to all stages of all criminal proceedings, which, as the dissenting opinion points out, include the collateral review procedures of § 2255. See post, at 179-180, 182, and nn. 5, 6. Even more striking, § 2255 Rule 12 explicitly permits a federal court to “apply the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, whichever it deems most appropriate, to motions filed under these rules.” *
The cause-and-prejudice standard of Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, is premised on the notion that contemporaneous-objection rules are entitled to respect — in the interests of preserving comity and effecting the administrative goals such rules are designed to serve. See 433 U. S., at 88-90 . As the Court concedes, considerations of comity are not at issue here. See ante, at 166. The second objective of the cause- and-prejudice requirement — to enforce contemporaneous-objection rules and, in particular, to ensure finality — is, in *177 my view, similarly irrelevant where, as the Court of Appeals found here, an explicit exception to the contemporaneous-objection rule is applicable. Giving effect to an express exception to a contemporaneous-objection rule is hardly inconsistent with that rule. Where a jurisdiction has established an exception to its contemporaneous-objection requirement and a prisoner’s petition for collateral review falls within that exception, I see no need for the prisoner to prove “cause” for his failure to comply with a rule that is inapplicable in his case.
In the federal courts, the plain-error doctrine constitutes an exception to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 30’s requirement that defendants make timely objections to instructions. If the Court of Appeals properly characterized the errors identified by respondent as plain error, it correctly refused to require him to make the cause-and-prejudice showing described in Wainwright v. Sykes, supra.
This approach does not, as the Court charges, “affor[d] federal prisoners a preferred status when they seek post-conviction relief.” Ante, at 166. The Court has long recognized that the Wainwright v. Sykes standard need not be met where a State has declined to enforce its own contemporaneous-objection rule. See, e. g., Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U. S. 140, 148-154 (1979); Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S., at 87 ; Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536, 542, n. 5 (1976). Similarly, the cause-and-prejudice standard should not be a barrier to relief when the plain-error exception to the federal contemporaneous-objection requirement is applicable. The federal contemporaneous-objection rules may differ from those of the States, and the applicability of the Wainwright v. Sykes standard therefore may vary according to the contours of the particular jurisdiction’s contemporaneous-objection requirement. But that variance does not improperly distinguish between federal and state prisoners, just as respecting any differences between the contemporaneous-objection rules of two States creates no impermissible *178 distinction. In fact, it is the Court’s approach — refusing to give effect to the plain-error exception to the federal contemporaneous-objection rule, while recognizing exceptions to the analogous state rules — that gives some prisoners a “preferred status.”
Similarly, my approach does not afford prisoners “a second appeal,” ante, at 164, thus sacrificing the interest in finality of convictions. As the dissenting opinion observes, acknowledging the applicability of Rule 52(b) in § 2255 proceedings does not merge direct appeal and collateral review. See post, at 180-181, n. 2; see also United States v. Addonizio, 442 U. S. 178, 186 (1979); Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U. S. 145, 154 (1977).
Because I agree with the Court, however, that respondent has not demonstrated that the erroneous jury instructions of which he complains “so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process,” Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 147 (1973), I conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that respondent was entitled to relief under Rule 52(b). Accordingly, I concur in the reversal of the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Although § 2255 Rule 12 does not “mandate by its own force the use of any particular Rule of Civil or Criminal Procedure,” ante, at 167, n. 15, it does afford a federal court discretion in determining whether to apply the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure or the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court’s extended discussion, in the same footnote, of the Advisory Committee’s Note to § 2254 Rule 11, is beside the point. The Advisory Committee’s Note to § 2255 Rule 12 expressly observes that Rule 12 “differs” from § 2254 Rule 11 in that the former “includes the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure as well as the civil.” 28 U. S. C., p. 287. And the note to Rule 12 apparently refers to the note accompanying § 2254 Rule 11 “[f]or discussion” only of “the restrictions in Fed. R. Civ. P. 81(a)(2). . . .” Even if the note to § 2254 Rule 11 is relevant to our decision in this case, I do not subscribe to the Court’s conclusion that the plain-error doctrine is “ ‘inconsistent or inequitable in the overall framework’ ” of collateral review pursuant to § 2255. See ante, at 167-168, n. 15, quoting Advisory Committee’s Note to § 2254 Rule 11.