We'll hear argument next in case 231345, Rivers v. Guerrero.

Mr. Bruland.

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, Congress did not slam the door on exculpatory evidence that emerges while a prisoner's first habeas case is on appeal.

Outside of habeas, there's always been a pathway to bring late-breaking claims

to an appellate court's attention, and historically, habeas was no different. The near-uniform

practice in the decades before EDPA was to consider such claims on the merits as part and parcel

of a prisoner's first habeas case without a word

about successive litigation. Congress enacted EDPA against that backdrop, and as

Bannister tells us, it did not redefine what counts as successive. The other side's rule is

unmoored from text and history, and it also comes at a cost.

Viable constitutional claims that would have warranted habeas relief will fall through the cracks under their rule.

That means every claim of sentencing error, every claim of structural error, and every Brady or NAPU claim that

doesn't show innocence by clear and convincing evidence. The reason those claims don't fly under

2244 is that Congress decided the state's interest in repose outweighs the interest in getting

those claims right. But the other side

has never explained why they're entitled to repose while they're still defending the conviction

on appeal, and you're not going to hear an explanation this morning. The small universe of cases

where our rule makes a difference is the universe of cases where

both the district court and the Court of Appeals agree that a new claim deserves its day in

court. Those cases will be rare, but when they arise, EDPA does not strip district courts

of the power to consider new evidence that would warrant habeas relief.

The lower courts here made a threshold jurisdictional error, and so never reached the merits or any procedural issues.

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