Rivers v. Guerrero

(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2024                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 

.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

         RIVERS v. GUERRERO, DIRECTOR, TEXAS
          DEPARTMENT OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
         CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTIONS DIVISION

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
                  THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

     No. 23–1345. Argued March 31, 2025—Decided June 12, 2025
Petitioner Danny Rivers was convicted in Texas state court of continuous
  sexual abuse of a child and related charges. After unsuccessfully seek-
  ing direct appeal and state habeas relief, Rivers filed his first federal
  habeas petition under 

 in August 2017, asserting
  claims of prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel,
  and other constitutional violations. The District Court denied the pe-
  tition in September 2018, and Rivers appealed to the Fifth Circuit,
  which granted a certificate of appealability on his ineffective-assis-
  tance claim in July 2020.
     While his appeal was pending, Rivers obtained his trial counsel’s
  client file, which contained a state investigator’s report that he be-
  lieved was exculpatory. After the Fifth Circuit denied his request to
  supplement the record on appeal, Rivers filed a second §2254 petition
  in the District Court based on this newly discovered evidence. The
  District Court classified this second-in-time filing as a “second or suc-
  cessive” habeas application under §2244(b) and transferred it to the
  Fifth Circuit for authorization to file. Rivers appealed the transfer
  order, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the fact that Riv-
  ers’s first petition was still on appeal did not permit him to circumvent
  the requirements for successive petitions under §2244 as to his second
  filing.
Held: Once a district court enters its judgment with respect to a first-
 filed habeas petition, a second-in-time filing qualifies as a “second or
 successive application” properly subject to the requirements of
 §2244(b). Pp. 5–14.
2                         RIVERS v. GUERRERO

                                  Syllabus

       (a) The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
    (AEDPA) contains several significant procedural barriers that strictly
    limit a court’s ability to hear “claim[s] presented” in any “second or
    successive habeas corpus application.” §§2244(b)(1), (2). Relevant
    here, §2244 prohibits habeas applicants from filing a subsequent peti-
    tion that re-litigates the merits of previously denied claims. See
    §2244(b)(1). Even if the subsequent petition presents a new claim, the
    second-in-time application can only proceed if it “relies on a new and
    retroactive rule of constitutional law” or “alleges previously undiscov-
    erable facts that would establish [the petitioner’s] innocence.” Banis-
    ter v. Davis, 

. In addition, a petitioner cannot bring
    a second or successive habeas application directly to the district court
    but must first go to the court of appeals and make a “prima facie show-
    ing” that the petition satisfies one of §2244(b)(2)’s exceptions. Pp. 5–
    6.
       (b) The Court has jurisdiction to review this dispute. Respondent
    contends that Rivers lacks standing because the Fifth Circuit has now
    affirmed the District Court’s judgment denying the initial habeas pe-
    tition on the merits. But because a favorable decision here would re-
    dress Rivers’s alleged injury that the District Court inappropriately
    transferred his second habeas application to the Fifth Circuit for re-
    view under §2244(b), Rivers has appellate standing with respect to
    that legal claim. Nor does the fact that Rivers is no longer in custody
    on the child-pornography conviction that his second habeas filing chal-
    lenges defeat this Court’s habeas jurisdiction, given that Rivers re-
    mains incarcerated on related sexual-abuse sentences that the newly
    discovered evidence may implicate. Pp. 6–7.
       (c) The phrase “second or successive habeas corpus application” in
    §2244(b)(2) is a “term of art” that does not refer to all habeas filings
    made second in time following an initial application. Whether a filing
    qualifies as a second or successive application generally turns on the
    existence of a final judgment with respect to the first petition, not the
    status of any appeal. An amended petition filed before judgment is not
    second or successive because final judgment has not issued, while a
    motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) filed after judg-
    ment counts as a second or successive application if it attacks the
    court’s previous resolution of a claim on the merits or seeks to add new
    grounds for relief.
       Rivers’s argument that his second filing should not trigger §2244(b)
    because his appeal was pending is unpersuasive. The Court’s decision
    in Banister v. Davis, 

, does not support a rule that is
    based on appeal timing but rather confirms that entry of final judg-
    ment generally separates first from second or successive habeas fil-
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                                Syllabus

  ings. Rule 59(e) motions present a unique variant because they sus-
  pend finality and help produce a single final judgment, but Rivers’s
  filing does not fall within this narrow category. Pp. 7–9.
     (d) Purpose and history do not support Rivers’s interpretation ei-
  ther. Section 2244(b)’s restrictions aim to conserve judicial resources,
  reduce piecemeal litigation, and lend finality to state-court judgments
  within a reasonable time. Drawing the second-or-successive line at the
  end of appellate review would allow petitioners to file numerous new
  applications during appeals, prolonging cases and encouraging piece-
  meal litigation. Historical habeas doctrine before AEDPA was incon-
  sistent regarding treatment of new filings during pending appeals,
  providing no clear guidance. Pp. 9–12.
     (e) The Court declines to address Rivers’s alternative argument that
  his second filing, which he argues was a Rule 15 motion to amend, is
  not a new application by its nature. This theory was not presented in
  the petition for certiorari or to the courts below and makes its first
  appearance in the merits briefing. Additionally, the factual predicate
  is lacking because the District Court lacked jurisdiction to grant such
  a motion while the case was on appeal, and Rivers never requested an
  indicative ruling under Rule 62.1. Pp. 12–14.

, affirmed.

  JACKSON, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
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                             Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
     Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
     pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                   _________________

                                   No. 23–1345
                                   _________________


   DANNY RICHARD RIVERS, PETITIONER v. ERIC
   GUERRERO, DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT
     OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, CORRECTIONAL
            INSTITUTIONS DIVISION
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
            APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
                                 [June 12, 2025]

   JUSTICE JACKSON delivered the opinion of the Court.
   Incarcerated individuals who seek to challenge their im-
prisonment through a federal habeas petition are generally
afforded one opportunity to do so. See 

,
2244. Before a federal court can address a petitioner’s sec-
ond or successive federal habeas filing on the merits, the
incarcerated filer must clear strict procedural hurdles that
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(AEDPA) erects. See §2244(b). This case presents the ques-
tion of how to classify a second-in-time habeas filing when
the judgment denying the first application is under review
on appeal. Does that second habeas-related submission
qualify as a second or successive application, thereby trig-
gering §2244(b)’s stringent gatekeeping requirements?
   We hold that, in general, once the district court has en-
tered its judgment with respect to the first habeas petition,
a second-in-time application qualifies as “second or succes-
sive” and is thus properly subject to the requirements of
§2244(b).
2                         RIVERS v. GUERRERO

                            Opinion of the Court

                               I
   In 2012, a Texas state-court jury convicted petitioner
Danny Rivers of continuous sexual abuse of a child, two
forms of indecency with a child, and possession of child por-
nography. Rivers unsuccessfully sought direct appeal and
state habeas relief.
   In August 2017, Rivers filed his first federal habeas peti-
tion under 

, a statute that permits a fed-
eral court to evaluate a state prisoner’s claim “that he is in
custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties
of the United States.” §2254(a). In that habeas petition,
Rivers asserted, inter alia, claims of prosecutorial miscon-
duct, ineffective assistance of trial and appellate counsel,
and due process and equal protection violations.
   The District Court denied Rivers’s habeas petition, issu-
ing its judgment in September 2018. Rivers then invoked
the procedure that AEDPA prescribes for seeking to chal-
lenge a §2254 habeas denial in the court of appeals: He
asked the Fifth Circuit to give him what is known as a “cer-
tificate of appealability.”1 A Fifth Circuit Judge granted
Rivers’s request in July 2020, but only as to his claim for
ineffective assistance of counsel.
   While his appeal was pending, Rivers gained access to his
own client file, which had been in his trial counsel’s posses-
sion. The file contained a state investigator’s report that
discussed two computer documents Rivers believed were re-
lated to his convictions; one document was labeled “of inter-
est,” while the other was specifically described as “not child
——————
    1 Individuals seeking to appeal the denial of a §2254 habeas petition

must receive permission to do so by obtaining such a certificate. See
§2253(c)(1)(A) (“[A]n appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals from
. . . the final order in a habeas corpus proceeding in which the detention
complained of arises out of process issued by a State court” “[u]nless a
circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability”). A certificate
of appealability can issue “only if the applicant has made a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” §2253(c)(2).
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                      Opinion of the Court

porn.” App. 94 (capitalization deleted). Rivers promptly re-
quested to supplement the Fifth Circuit’s case record with
this purportedly exculpatory information, but the Fifth Cir-
cuit denied that request. Rivers then asked the appellate
panel to either stay the appeal or remand the case to the
District Court to allow him to present this new evidence to
the lower court in the first instance. See 

 (arguing
that “justice and judicial economy would best be served” if
a single court considered “all grounds” for relief (capitaliza-
tion deleted)). The Fifth Circuit rejected the stay-or-re-
mand request as well and, thereafter, affirmed the District
Court’s denial of Rivers’s §2254 petition on the merits. This
Court denied certiorari. See Rivers v. Lumpkin, 

 (2023).
   Notably for present purposes, after the Fifth Circuit de-
nied Rivers’s request to supplement the record, Rivers filed
another §2254 petition with the District Court. This peti-
tion included the newly obtained state investigator’s report
and raised claims for relief related to that evidence. A Mag-
istrate Judge recommended that this second-in-time ha-
beas petition be classified as a “second or successive” ha-
beas application for §2244(b) purposes. Rivers objected,
arguing that his second §2254 filing should not be con-
strued as a new habeas application. Rather, Rivers as-
serted, the new filing should be treated as an amendment
to his initial habeas petition, because the judgment related
to that first petition was still on appeal.
   The District Court rejected Rivers’s argument. It con-
cluded that the second-in-time filing was a second or suc-
cessive habeas petition subject to §2244(b)(2) and trans-
ferred the filing to the Fifth Circuit for a determination
whether §2244(b)(2)’s gatekeeping requirements for second
or successive habeas petitions had been satisfied. See Part
II, infra. Rivers then appealed the District Court’s transfer
order, again insisting that his filing was not a second or suc-
cessive habeas petition (as opposed to a motion to amend)
4                        RIVERS v. GUERRERO

                           Opinion of the Court

“because his first-in-time petition was still pending on ap-
peal.” Rivers v. Lumpkin, 

 (CA5 2024).
   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. In its view, “the timing of Riv-
ers’s second-in-time petition d[id] not permit him to circum-
vent the requirements for filing successive petitions under
§2244.” Id., at 221. The panel reasoned that the District
Court could have treated the second-in-time filing as a re-
quest to amend under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 if
the judgment relating to Rivers’s first petition had been va-
cated on appeal and the case reopened in the District Court.
Ibid. But because the judgment as to the first petition had
not been so vacated, “Rivers’s second-in-time habeas peti-
tion” was a “second or successive” petition that was “subject
to the district court’s transfer order for lack of jurisdiction
absent authorization to file.” Id., at 223.
   The Fifth Circuit’s decision entrenched a Circuit split
over how to characterize a second-in-time habeas filing that
is filed when an appeal of the judgment of the first habeas
filing is pending.2 Is the second filing a “second or succes-
sive” habeas petition for §2244 purposes, or not? We
granted certiorari to resolve that split. 

 (2024).



——————
  2 The majority of Circuits to consider the issue have concluded that

§2244(b) applies to a second-in-time habeas filing as of the district court’s
entry of final judgment related to the first application, regardless of the
status of any appeal. See, e.g., Balbuena v. Sullivan, 

, 641–
642 (CA9 2020); Phillips v. United States, 

, 435–436 (CA7
2012); Ochoa v. Sirmons, 

, 540–541 (CA10 2007) (per cu-
riam); Williams v. Norris, 

, 1003–1004 (CA8 2006). The
Second Circuit, by contrast, has held that “so long as appellate proceed-
ings following the district court’s dismissal of the initial petition remain
pending when a subsequent petition is filed, the subsequent petition does
not come within AEDPA’s gatekeeping provisions for ‘second or succes-
sive’ petitions.” Whab v. United States, 

 (2005) (em-
phasis added); see also United States v. Santarelli, 

(CA3 2019) (“join[ing] the Second Circuit”).
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                     Opinion of the Court

                               II
   Habeas petitioners are generally entitled to “one fair op-
portunity” to litigate the merits of their postconviction
claims in federal court. Banister v. Davis, 

 (2020); see also Slack v. McDaniel, 

, 485–
486 (2000); Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal, 

 (1998). When a person seeks to bring a subsequent fed-
eral habeas challenge to his detention, “the road gets rock-
ier.” Banister, 

. AEDPA contains several
significant procedural barriers that strictly limit a court’s
ability to hear “claim[s] presented” in any “second or suc-
cessive habeas corpus application.” §§2244(b)(1), (2).
   Several of those barriers are relevant to the issue pre-
sented in this case. First, §2244 prohibits habeas appli-
cants from filing a subsequent petition that relitigates the
merits of previously denied claims. See §2244(b)(1) (stating
that any claim that “was presented in a prior application
shall be dismissed”). Second, even if the subsequent peti-
tion presents a new claim, the second-in-time application
can only proceed if it “falls within one of two narrow cate-
gories”: The claim must “rel[y] on a new and retroactive rule
of constitutional law” or “alleg[e] previously undiscoverable
facts that would establish [the petitioner’s] innocence.”
Banister, 

; see also §2244(b)(2). Addition-
ally, a petitioner cannot bring a second or successive habeas
application directly to the district court. Instead, he must
first go to the court of appeals and make a “prima facie
showing” that the petition satisfies one of §2244(b)(2)’s ex-
ceptions, and that court has to grant authorization for the
petitioner to proceed in district court. §2244(b)(3). And
then, even when such leave is granted, the district court
must independently confirm that the petition satisfies the
requirements of §2244(b)(2). See §2244(b)(4).
   These rules apply to second-in-time habeas filings even if
the filing is not styled as a §2254 habeas application by the
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                      Opinion of the Court

filer—so long as the document is a §2254 petition in sub-
stance. For example, a self-styled “motion” that “seeks to
add a new ground for relief ” or “attacks the federal court’s
previous resolution of a claim on the merits” can be con-
strued as a second or successive petition and forced to face
the gauntlet of §2244(b), no matter how it is labeled. Gon-
zalez v. Crosby, 

 (2005) (emphasis de-
leted).
                              III
   Respondent presents two arguments for why we lack ju-
risdiction over today’s dispute about how Rivers’s second-
in-time habeas filing should be characterized: first, that
Rivers lacks standing because his injury is not redressable;
and second, that the Court lacks habeas jurisdiction be-
cause Rivers’s child-pornography sentence has expired. For
his part, Rivers makes two alternative arguments about the
merits. He maintains that the second-in-time habeas peti-
tion does not trigger the second-or-successive requirements
of §2244(b) because his appeal of the first petition was pend-
ing when he filed the second one. Alternatively, he argues
that his second-in-time filing should be construed as a mo-
tion to amend—and, so construed, does not qualify as an
“application” to which §2244(b)’s requirements apply.
                              A
  We begin our analysis by quickly disposing of respond-
ent’s contention that we lack jurisdiction. Respondent first
insists that Rivers lacks standing because the Fifth Circuit
has now affirmed the District Court’s judgment denying the
initial habeas petition on the merits, and this Court lacks
the authority to reopen that judgment in this separate liti-
gation. But a favorable decision from this Court would re-
dress Rivers’s alleged injury—namely, that the District
Court inappropriately transferred his second-in-time ha-
beas application to the Fifth Circuit for review under
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                       Opinion of the Court

§2244(b). Rivers therefore has appellate standing with re-
spect to that legal claim. See Food Marketing Institute v.
Argus Leader Media, 

 (2019).
  Respondent is also mistaken regarding the contention
that the Court lacks habeas jurisdiction because Rivers is
no longer in custody on the child-pornography conviction
that the second habeas filing challenges. See §2254(a) (per-
mitting an application from an individual “in custody”).
The record establishes that the newly discovered evidence
Rivers wants the federal courts to consider implicates the
sexual-abuse sentences for which Rivers remains incarcer-
ated, too. Thus, we retain habeas jurisdiction to review his
claims.
                                B
                                1
   Turning to the parties’ merits arguments concerning Riv-
ers’s second-in-time habeas filing, we note, to start, that the
phrase “second or successive . . . application” as it appears
in §2244(b)(2) is a “term of art”—that is, it does not neces-
sarily “ ‘refer’ to all habeas filings made ‘second or succes-
sively in time,’ following an initial application.” Banister,

 (quoting Magwood v. Patterson, 

 (2010)). Instead, the second-or-successive moniker
applies only to “claim[s]” that have been presented in sub-
sequently filed “applications.” §2244(b)(2). A “claim,” as
that term is used in §2244(b), is “an asserted federal basis
for relief ” from the judgment of conviction. Gonzalez, 

. And an “application” is “a filing that seeks ‘an
adjudication’ ” of one of those claims “ ‘on the merits.’ ” 

(quoting Woodford v. Garceau, 

 (2003);
emphasis deleted); see also Gonzalez, 

 (ex-
plaining that motions that do not “substantively addres[s]
federal grounds for setting aside the movant’s state convic-
tion,” for example, are not subject to the second-or-succes-
sive bar).
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                      Opinion of the Court

   Rivers acknowledges that his second-in-time filing
“raised several new claims” that he had not presented pre-
viously to the District Court. Pet. for Cert. 12. Still, in his
petition for certiorari—and, to a lesser extent, his merits
brief—Rivers argues that this filing did not qualify as a sec-
ond or successive application triggering §2244(b) because it
was submitted during the pendency of his appeal of the
judgment related to his first habeas petition. Id., at 24;
Brief for Petitioner 37. We do not agree with that proposi-
tion. Our case law establishes instead that whether a filing
qualifies as a second or successive application generally
turns on the existence of a final judgment with respect to
the first petition, not the status of an appeal.
   We have noted, for example, that “an amended petition,
filed after the initial one but before judgment, is not second
or successive” for §2244(b) purposes precisely because final
judgment has not issued. Banister, 

 (em-
phasis added). On the other hand, we have determined that
a motion for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 60(b) (filed, obviously, after the judgment
has issued) counts as a second or successive application if
that filing “attacks the federal court’s previous resolution of
the claim on the merits” or “seeks to add a new ground for
relief ” not addressed by the judgment. Gonzalez, 

 (emphasis deleted).
   Pointing to Banister, Rivers insists that this Court has
already rejected a moment-of-judgment rule for distin-
guishing between second-in-time filings that qualify as sec-
ond or successive applications and those that do not. But
our ruling in Banister related to a materially different filing
submitted in a materially different context. There, the
Court considered whether a motion to alter or amend a
judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e)—i.e.,
a motion filed within 28 days that seeks to correct an error
in the District Court’s judgment prior to an appeal—should
be construed as a second or successive filing under §2244(b).
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                      Opinion of the Court

. To be sure, the respondent in that case
had “urged this Court to hold that ‘[e]ntry of final judgment
is the dividing line between a first and second application,’ ”
as Rivers notes. Brief for Petitioner 37 (quoting Brief for
Respondent in Banister v. Davis, O. T. 2019, No. 18–6943,
p. 18; alteration in original). But Rule 59(e) motions pre-
sent a unique variant to the otherwise generally applicable
rule that entry of final judgment separates first from second
or successive habeas filings.
   Specifically, unlike a Rule 60(b) motion for relief from
judgment, which seeks to challenge an extant judgment, a
successful Rule 59(e) motion merely “suspends finality” of
the original judgment so that the district court can “fix any
mistakes and thereby perfect its judgment before a possible
appeal.” Banister, 

. A Rule 59(e) motion is
“a limited continuation of the original proceeding—indeed,
a part of producing the final judgment granting or denying
habeas relief.” 

. As a result, disposition on a Rule
59(e) motion “merges into the final judgment” of the initial
habeas filing. 

.
   In other words, Rule 59(e) motions are “attendant on the
initial habeas application” itself and “hel[p] produce a sin-
gle final judgment for appeal.” 

 at 515–516. Thus, they
are not themselves properly considered to be second or suc-
cessive filings under AEDPA. 

; see also 

 at
518–520 (contrasting this with second-in-time filings that
“collaterally attack [the District Court’s] already completed
judgment” and from which appeal is “independent of the ap-
peal of the original petition”). When properly understood,
then, our decision in Banister actually supports the rule
that Rivers resists.
                              2
  Rivers also maintains that it undermines the purposes of
AEDPA, and diverges from historical habeas doctrine and
practice, to conclude that second-in-time applications filed
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                      Opinion of the Court

during the pendency of an appeal trigger §2244(b). See id.,
at 512–513 (explaining that these factors are relevant to the
second-or-successive inquiry). But purpose and history do
not push us in the direction of adopting Rivers’s preferred
interpretation either.
   As we have said before, “[t]he point of §2244(b)’s [gate-
keeping] restrictions . . . is to conserve judicial resources,
reduce piecemeal litigation, and lend finality to state court
judgments within a reasonable time.” Id., at 512 (internal
quotation marks and alterations omitted). Rivers argues
that his interpretation advances these aims by, for exam-
ple, steering new claims to district courts, which have the
“tools and experience that appellate courts lack” to termi-
nate suits and thereby “haste[n] finality.” Brief for Peti-
tioner 34 (capitalization and boldface deleted). But the re-
ality is quite the opposite. If the second-or-successive line
is drawn at the end of the appellate-review period, a peti-
tioner could file any number of new applications raising
new claims during the pendency of appeal or certiorari re-
view, thereby prolonging the case seemingly indefinitely.
So, as a practical matter and in the mine-run case, Rivers’s
theory would promote inefficiency by encouraging piece-
meal litigation, and would thus make it substantially more
difficult to “produce a single final judgment for appeal.”
Banister, 

.
   Rivers tries to bolster his congressional-intent-related ar-
guments by pointing to other postconviction provisions that
pin “finality” to the end of appellate review, not to the entry
of judgment. See, e.g., §2244(d)(1)(A) (running the 1-year
deadline to file a §2254 petition from “the date on which the
judgment became final by the conclusion of direct review or
the expiration of the time for seeking such review”). We
note, however, that these provisions are buoyed by different
animating purposes. The 1-year deadline for filing a §2254
petition, for example, promotes exhaustion of claims and re-
spects state-court processes, whereas AEDPA’s second-or-
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                          Opinion of the Court

successive restrictions “constitute a modified res judicata
rule,” Felker v. Turpin, 

 (1996), that “bal-
ance[s] . . . finality and error correction,” Jones v. Hendrix,

 (2023). “It is thus hardly ‘strange’ that
rules governing exhaustion and the statute of limitations
for purposes of bringing an initial application differ from
those governing a successive application.” Brief for Re-
spondent 38. With AEDPA’s second-or-successive bar, Con-
gress chose to promote finality by requiring authorization
from the court of appeals to file successive petitions; the
question before us today is merely when that requirement
kicks in.
   Rivers’s appeal to historical habeas doctrine fares no bet-
ter because, prior to AEDPA, there was no clear or con-
sistent practice regarding how new habeas-related filings
were treated during the pendency of an appeal. Some
courts would consider new habeas filings on the merits, and
deny them, when the first-in-time habeas petition was un-
der appellate review.3 But others would dismiss such fil-
ings without reaching the merits, on the ground that they
were second or successive petitions not subject to review.4
It is difficult to know what to make of these inconsistent
practices, especially when Rivers fails to point to any case
in which a court actually granted habeas relief on a subse-
quent petition while the first was on appeal. The historical
picture is thus far too murky to be dispositive. Cf. Banister,
590 U. S., at 514–515 (relying on historical case law that

——————
  3 See, e.g., Giarratano v. Procunier, 

, 485–487 (CA4 1989)

(affirming the denial of a mid-appeal Rule 60(b) motion on the merits);
Schewchun v. Edwards, 

, *1–*2 (CA6, Feb. 19, 1987)
(same).
  4 See, e.g., Behringer v. Johnson, 

, 189–190 (CA5 1996)

(per curiam) (affirming denial of a Rule 60(b) motion containing new
claims filed while the first petition was pending on appeal as a successive
habeas petition); Hunt v. Nuth, 

, 1338–1339 (CA4
1995) (same).
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                           Opinion of the Court

indicated an overwhelming consensus in favor of the peti-
tioner’s view). As such, Rivers’s history and policy argu-
ments do not move the needle in our analysis.
   In short, we reject Rivers’s focus on the timing of his suc-
cessive filing relative to the pendency of his appeal, and we
conclude instead that it is the final judgment related to the
initial habeas filing that matters. Once the judgment has
been entered with respect to the initial habeas petition, a
second-in-time filing that makes new habeas claims gener-
ally qualifies as a second or successive petition for §2244(b)
purposes.5
                              IV
  Rivers’s petition for certiorari posited the question we’ve
answered above. See Pet. for Cert. 1 (asking “whether 

(b)(2)’s rules for ‘second or successive’ habeas
petitions apply to a habeas filing made after the district
court has denied an initial petition but before an appellate
court has weighed in”).6 But Rivers’s merits briefing pivots
to articulate an additional theory, in the alternative: that
second-in-time filings that request amendment of the initial
habeas petition under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure do not—by their nature—qualify as second or
successive filings under §2244(b). See Brief for Petitioner

——————
   5 Although we hold today that an application is second or successive

under §2244(b) if a judgment on the merits has issued as to a first-in-
time petition even if the case remains pending on appeal, we neither de-
cide nor comment on whether the classification of a second-in-time peti-
tion must occur while the appeal is pending. That is, we take no position
on whether, in a case where the facts support doing so, a subsequent
filing can be held in abeyance until the first-in-time appeal has con-
cluded, as is the common practice in some Circuits. See, e.g., Santarelli,
929 F. 3d, at 105–106.
   6 See also Pet. for Cert. 2 (claiming that “[t]he Fifth Circuit’s decision

deepen[ed] a circuit conflict over when §2244(b)(2) kicks in”); id., at 24
(“Section 2244(b)(2) does not apply until appellate review of the first ha-
beas application is exhausted” (boldface deleted)).
                  Cite as: 

 (2025)           13

                      Opinion of the Court

23 (“[A]n ‘amendment’ is not a new and independent appli-
cation, but rather something that happens to an existing
application”); see also 

 (describing Rule 15 motions
as “part and parcel of the initial application” (boldface de-
leted)). We decline to address this argument today for two
reasons.
    First, Rivers failed to present this argument in his peti-
tion for certiorari or to the courts below. This new theory
for why his successive filing does not trigger §2244(b) does
not operate on the timing of the filing (i.e., whether, when
an appeal is pending, the filing is “second or successive”),
but, rather, on its nature (i.e., whether, when submitted un-
der Rule 15, the filing counts as an “application” at all).
Rivers did not cite §2242—the source of authority upon
which he relies for this alternative argument—until his
opening merits brief in this Court. We have often said that
“ ‘[w]e are a Court of review, not of first view.’ ” Moody v.
NetChoice, LLC, 

 (2024) (quoting Cutter
v. Wilkinson, 

 (2005)). Rivers’s al-
ternative argument thus “suffers from the legally fatal
problem that it makes its first appearance here in this
Court in the briefs on the merits.” Ohio Forestry Assn., Inc.
v. Sierra Club, 

 (1998).
    Second, and in any event, we note that the factual predi-
cate necessary for Rivers’s Rule 15 argument to help him in
this case is lacking. The District Court could not have
granted Rivers’s Rule 15 motion to amend (assuming, ar-
guendo, that we treat his second-in-time filing as such)
while his habeas claims were being considered on appeal,
since jurisdiction had shifted to the Court of Appeals. See
Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 

 (2023). Recog-
nizing this, Rivers asserts that the District Court could
have issued an indicative ruling on this motion under Rule
62.1, which, in turn, might have persuaded the Fifth Circuit
to remand the case to the District Court for consideration
of the amendment. But there is one more missing piece
14                     RIVERS v. GUERRERO

                         Opinion of the Court

(and it is crucial): Rivers never asked the District Court in
this case for such an indicative ruling. Nor does he argue
that the District Court abused its discretion by failing to
issue one sua sponte. Meanwhile, the Fifth Circuit consid-
ered—and denied—the actual remand motion that Rivers
filed with that court; he asked the Circuit to send the mat-
ter back to the District Court for consideration of the newly
discovered evidence, and we now lack jurisdiction to review
its refusal to do so.7
   Thus, even if Rivers’s filing in the District Court could
have been construed as a Rule 15 motion to amend, the Dis-
trict Court was powerless to grant it while his case was on
appeal, and the Fifth Circuit had no proclivity to remand
the matter to the District Court in any event. This means
that Rivers’s alternative theory is of no use to him, and, as
such, we decline to address it.
                         *    *      *
  A second-in-time §2254 petition generally qualifies as a
second or successive application, triggering the require-
ments of §2244(b), when an earlier filed petition has been
decided on the merits and a judgment exists. Because the
Fifth Circuit correctly applied this straightforward rule, we
affirm.
                                              It is so ordered.




——————
  7 That Fifth Circuit ruling was associated with Rivers’s first habeas

petition and is memorialized in a separate docket than the case which is
now on appeal. See App. 9–12. We denied certiorari on April 3, 2023.
See Rivers v. Lumpkin, 

.