Rivers v. Guerrero

Justia · Docket · oyez.org

Argued on Mar 31, 2025.

Petitioner: Danny Richard Rivers.
Respondent: Eric Guerrero, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division.

Advocates:

Peter A. Bruland (for the Petitioner)
Aaron L. Nielson (for the Respondent)
Matthew Guarnieri (for the United States, as amicus curiae, supporting the Respondent)

Facts of the case (from oyez.org)

In 2012, Danny Rivers was convicted in Texas state court of multiple charges related to sexual abuse of a child and possession of child pornography. He filed his first federal habeas petition in August 2017 challenging these convictions, which was denied by the district court in September 2018. While his appeal of that denial was pending, Rivers filed a second habeas petition in February 2021 raising new claims after obtaining his attorney-client file through a state bar grievance in October 2019. The district court deemed this second petition “successive” under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) and transferred it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for authorization, but Rivers failed to file the required motion for authorization. After the Fifth Circuit ultimately affirmed the denial of his first petition in May 2022, Rivers appealed the transfer order of his second petition, arguing that it should have been treated as a motion to amend his first petition rather than as a successive petition since his first petition was still pending when he filed the second one.

The Fifth Circuit disagreed and affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Rivers’s second-in-time petition for lack of jurisdiction.

Question

Does 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2) apply to all second habeas petitions, or only specific types of second petitions?

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