SWAIN v. PRESSLEY

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent is in custody pursuant to a sentence imposed by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.1 He has filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia asking that court to review the constitutionality of the proceedings that led to his conviction and sentence. The question presented to us is whether § 23-110 (g) of the District of Columbia Code2 prevents the District Court from entertaining the application.3

Congress enacted § 23-110 (g) as part of the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 608; that Act created a new local court system and transferred in its entirety the Federal District Court's responsibility for processing local litigation to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.4 Section 23-110 of the Code established a procedure for collateral review of convictions in the Superior Court; the procedure is comparable to that authorized by 28 U. S. C. § 2255 for the United States district courts. Section 23-110 (g) provides:

On the authority of this provision, the District Court dismissed respondent's application.6 The Court of Appeals reversed. Largely because of its doubts concerning the constitutionality of a statutory curtailment of the District Court's jurisdiction to issue writs of habeas corpus, the Court of Appeals construed the statute as merely requiring exhaustion of local remedies before a habeas corpus petition could be filed in the District Court.7 The Court of Appeals, unlike the District Court, concluded that respondent had exhausted his local remedies and thus remanded the case to the District Court for consideration of the merits. The Government's petition for certiorari which we granted, 424 U.S. 907, did not question the Court of Appeals' conclusion regarding exhaustion.8

I

There are two reasons why § 23-110 (g) cannot fairly be read as merely requiring the exhaustion of local remedies before applying for a writ of habeas corpus in the District Court.

First, the statute expressly covers the situation in which the applicant has exhausted his local remedies, and requires that the application be denied in such a case. The statute provides that the application "shall not be entertained . . . by any Federal . . . court if it appears that . . . the Superior Court has denied [the applicant] relief." This unequivocal statutory command to federal courts not to entertain an application for habeas corpus after the applicant has been denied collateral relief in the Superior Court, is squarely at odds with the Court of Appeals' view that the statute deals only with the procedure the applicant must follow before he may request relief in the District Court.

Second, the language of § 23-110 (g) was deliberately patterned after 28 U. S. C. § 2255.9 That section, enacted in 1948, 62 Stat. 967, substituted a new collateral-review procedure for the pre-existing habeas corpus procedure. Prior to the adoption of § 2255, the district courts for the districts in which federal prisoners were confined entertained habeas corpus petitions; since 1948, collateral review has been available pursuant to § 2255 only in the districts in which the convictions were obtained. Thus, § 2255 created a new postconviction remedy in the sentencing court and provided that a habeas corpus petition may not be entertained elsewhere.10 See United States v. Hayman, 342 U.S. 205. Just as § 2255 was intended to substitute a different forum and a different procedure for collateral review of federal convictions, § 23-110 (g) was plainly intended to achieve a parallel result with respect to convictions in the District of Columbia.

Notwithstanding the desirability of adopting a construction of the statute which would avoid the constitutional issue raised by respondent, we are convinced that the language of § 23-110 (g) is sufficiently plain to require us simply to read it as it is written.11

II

Respondent argues12 that § 23-110 (g), if read literally, violates Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution, which provides:

His argument is made in two steps: (1) that the substitution of a remedy that is not "exactly commensurate" with habeas corpus relief available in a district court is a suspension of the writ within the meaning of the Clause; and (2) that because the judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia do not enjoy the life tenure and salary protection which are guaranteed to district judges by Art. III, § 1, of the Constitution, the collateral-review procedure authorized by § 23-110 (g) of the District of Columbia Code is not exactly commensurate with habeas corpus relief in the district courts.

The Government disputes both propositions. First, it contends that the constitutional provision merely prohibits suspension of the writ as it was being used when the Constitution was adopted; at that time the writ was not employed in collateral attacks on judgments entered by courts of competent jurisdiction.13 Second, it contends that the procedure authorized by § 23-110 (g) is "exactly commensurate" with the pre-existing habeas corpus remedy.

We are satisfied that the statute is valid, but we do not rest our decision on either of the broad propositions advanced by the Government. We are persuaded that the final clause in § 23-110 (g) avoids any serious question about the constitutionality of the statute. That clause allows the District Court to entertain a habeas corpus application if it "appears that the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [the applicant's] detention." Thus, the only constitutional question presented is whether the substitution of a new collateral remedy which is both adequate and effective should be regarded as a suspension of the Great Writ within the meaning of the Constitution. The obvious answer to this question is provided by the Court's opinion in United States v. Hayman:

The Court implicitly held in Hayman, as we hold in this case, that the substitution of a collateral remedy which is neither inadequate nor ineffective to test the legality of a person's detention does not constitute a suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.

The question which remains is whether the remedy in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia created by § 23-110 is "inadequate or ineffective." We have already construed the remedy created by 28 U. S. C. § 2255 as the exact equivalent of the pre-existing habeas corpus remedy. Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 427.14 Since the scope of the remedy provided by § 23-110 is the same as that provided by § 2255, it is also commensurate with habeas corpus in all respects save one—the judges who administer it do not have the tenure and salary protection afforded by Art. III of the Constitution.15

We are fully cognizant of the critical importance of life tenure, particularly when judges are required to vindicate the constitutional rights of persons who have been found guilty of criminal offenses.16 The relationship between life tenure and judicial independence was vigorously explained by Mr. Justice Douglas in his dissenting opinion in Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 410-422. But, as the Court held in that case, the Constitution does not require that all persons charged with federal crimes be tried in Art. III courts.17 That holding necessarily determines that the judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia must be presumed competent to decide all issues, including constitutional issues, that routinely arise in the trial of criminal cases. We must, therefore, presume that the collateral relief available in the Superior Court is neither ineffective nor inadequate simply because the judges of that court do not have life tenure.18

This conclusion is consistent with the settled view that elected judges of our state courts are fully competent to decide federal constitutional issues, and that their decisions must be respected by federal district judges in processing habeas corpus applications pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254. Normally a state judge's resolution of a factual issue will be presumed to be correct unless the factfinding procedure employed by the state court was not adequate.19 It is equally permissible to presume that the judges of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia will correctly resolve constitutional issues unless it has been demonstrated, in accordance with the final clause of § 23-110 (g), that the remedy afforded by that court is "inadequate or ineffective."20

Finding no reason to doubt the adequacy of the remedy provided by § 23-110, and having noted that its scope is commensurate with habeas corpus relief, we hold that § 23-110 (g) has not suspended the writ of habeas corpus within the meaning of Art. I, § 9, cl. 2.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

MR. JUSTICE POWELL, concurring.

I concur in the opinion of the Court. In view, however, of the separate opinion filed today by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, I write merely to make clear that I do not read Part II of the Court's opinion as being incompatible with the views I have expressed previously with respect to the nature and scope of habeas corpus. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 250 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring).

MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, with whom MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN and MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST join, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I join Part I of the Court's opinion and concur in the Court's judgment. However, I find it unnecessary to examine the adequacy of the remedy provided by § 23-110 (g) for I do not consider that the statute in any way implicates the respondent's rights under the Suspension Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 2, of the Constitution.

The sweep of the Suspension Clause must be measured by reference to the intention of the Framers and their understanding of what the writ of habeas corpus meant at the time the Constitution was drafted. The scope of the writ during the 17th and 18th centuries has been described as follows:

Thus, at common law, the writ was available (1) to compel adherence to prescribed procedures in advance of trial; (2) to inquire into the cause of commitment not pursuant to judicial process; and (3) to inquire whether a committing court had proper jurisdiction. The writ in 1789 was not considered "a means by which one court of general jurisdiction exercises post-conviction review over the judgment of another court of like authority." Id., at 451.

Dicta to the contrary in Fay v. Noia, 372 U.S. 391 (1963), have since been shown to be based on an incorrect view of the historic functions of habeas corpus. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 252-256 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). The fact is that in defining the scope of federal collateral remedies the Court has invariably engaged in statutory interpretation, construing what Congress has actually provided, rather than what it constitutionally must provide. See Developments in the Law—Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038, 1268 (1970). Judge Friendly has expressed this view clearly:

Since I do not believe that the Suspension Clause requires Congress to provide a federal remedy for collateral review of a conviction entered by a court of competent jurisdiction, I see no issue of constitutional dimension raised by the statute in question. Under this view of the case, I need not consider the important constitutional question whether the Suspension Clause protects the jurisdiction of the Art. III courts. A doctrine that allowed transfer of the historic habeas jurisdiction to an Art. I court could raise separation-of-powers questions, since the traditional Great Writ was largely a remedy against executive detention. See P. Bator, P. Mishkin, D. Shapiro, & H. Wechsler, Hart & Wechsler's The Federal Courts and the Federal System 1513-1514 (2d ed. 1973). However, I agree with Part I of the Court's opinion, namely that § 23-110 (g) was designed to preclude access to the District Court, not merely to assure exhaustion of local remedies and I would end the inquiry there. Congress has not provided access to the District Court and is under no compulsion to do so. I would therefore reverse the judgment on this basis.