MAYLE, WARDEN v. FELIX

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
644 OCTOBER TERM, 2004
Syllabus
MAYLE, WARDEN v. FELIX
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 04–563. Argued April 19, 2005—Decided June 23, 2005
Respondent Felix was convicted of murder and robbery in California state
court and sentenced to life imprisonment. His current application for
federal habeas relief centers on two alleged trial-court errors, both in
volving the admission of out-of-court statements during the prosecutor’s
case in chief but otherwise unrelated. Felix had made inculpatory
statements during pretrial police interrogation. He alleged that those
statements were coerced, and that their admission violated his Fifth
Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. He also alleged that
the admission of a videotape recording of testimony of a prosecution
witness violated the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause.
Felix’s conviction was affirmed on appeal and became final on August
12, 1997. Under the one-year limitation period imposed by the Antiter
rorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U. S. C.
§ 2244(d)(1), Felix had until August 12, 1998, to file a habeas petition in
federal court. On May 8, 1998, in a timely filed habeas petition, Felix
asserted his Confrontation Clause challenge to admission of the video
taped prosecution witness testimony, but did not then challenge the ad
mission of his own pretrial statements. On January 28, 1999, over five
months after the August 12, 1998 expiration of AEDPA’s time limit and
eight months after the court appointed counsel to represent him, Felix
filed an amended petition asserting a Fifth Amendment objection to
admission of his pretrial statements. In response to the State’s argu
ment that the Fifth Amendment claim was time barred, Felix asserted
the rule that pleading amendments relate back to the filing date of the
original pleading when both the original plea and the amendment arise
out of the same “conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth . . . in
the original pleading,” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(c)(2). Because his Fifth
Amendment and Confrontation Clause claims challenged the constitu
tionality of the same criminal conviction, Felix urged, both claims arose
out of the same “conduct, transaction, or occurrence.” The District
Court dismissed the Fifth Amendment claim as time barred, and re
jected the Confrontation Clause claim on its merits. The Ninth Circuit
affirmed as to the latter claim, but reversed the dismissal of the coerced
statements claim and remanded it for further proceedings. In the
court’s view, the relevant “transaction” for Rule 15(c)(2) purposes was

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
645 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Syllabus
Felix’s state-court trial and conviction. Defining transaction with
greater specificity, the court reasoned, would unduly strain the meaning
of “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” by dividing the trial and convic
tion into a series of individual occurrences.
Held: An amended habeas petition does not relate back (and thereby avoid
AEDPA’s one-year time limit) when it asserts a new ground for relief
supported by facts that differ in both time and type from those set forth
in the original pleading. Pp. 654–664.
(a) Under § 2244(d)(1), a one-year limitation period applies to a state
prisoner’s federal habeas application. Habeas Corpus Rule 11 permits
application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in habeas cases “to
the extent [the civil rules] are not inconsistent with any statutory provi
sions or [the habeas] rules.” Section 2242 provides that habeas applica
tions “may be amended . . . as provided in the rules of procedure applica
ble to civil actions.” Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a) allows
pleading amendments with “leave of court” any time during a proceed
ing. Before a responsive pleading is served, pleadings may be amended
once as a “matter of course,” i. e., without seeking court leave. Ibid.
Amendments made after the statute of limitations has run relate back
to the date of the original pleading if the original and amended plead
ings “ar[i]se out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence.” Rule
15(c)(2). The “original pleading” in a habeas proceeding is the petition
as initially filed. That pleading must “specify all the grounds for re
lief available to the petitioner” and “state the facts supporting each
ground.” Habeas Corpus Rule 2(c). A prime purpose of Rule 2(c)’s
demand that petitioners plead with particularity is to assist the district
court in determining whether the State should be ordered to “show
cause why the writ should not be granted,” § 2243, or the petition in
stead should be summarily dismissed without ordering a responsive
pleading. Habeas Corpus Rule 4. Pp. 654–656.
(b) Under the Ninth Circuit’s comprehensive definition of “conduct,
transaction, or occurrence,” virtually any new claim introduced in an
amended habeas petition will relate back, for federal habeas claims, by
their very nature, challenge the constitutionality of a conviction or sen
tence, and commonly attack proceedings anterior thereto. The major
ity of Circuits define “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” in federal
habeas cases far less broadly, allowing relation back only when the
claims added by amendment arise from the same core facts as the timely
filed claims, and not when the new claims depend upon events separate
in both time and type from the originally raised episodes. Under that
view, Felix’s own pretrial statements, newly raised in his amended peti
tion, would not relate back because they were separated in time and

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
646 MAYLE v. FELIX
Syllabus
type from the videotaped witness testimony. This Court is not aware,
in the run-of-the-mine civil proceedings Rule 15 governs, of any reading
of “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” as capacious as the Ninth Cir
cuit’s construction for habeas cases. Decisions applying Rule 15(c)(2)
in the civil context illustrate that Rule 15(c)(2) relaxes, but does not
obliterate, the statute of limitations; hence relation back depends on the
existence of a common core of operative facts uniting the original and
newly asserted claims. The Court disagrees with Felix’s assertion that
he seeks, and the Ninth Circuit accorded, no wider range for Rule 15(c)’s
relation-back provision than was given the words “conduct, transaction,
or occurrence” in Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 323 U. S. 574,
580–581. There, the amended complaint invoked a legal theory not sug
gested in the original complaint and relied on facts not originally as
serted. Relation back was nevertheless permitted. In Tiller, how
ever, there was but one “occurrence,” the death of the petitioner’s
husband, which she attributed throughout to the respondent’s failure to
provide a safe workplace. In contrast, Felix targeted discrete episodes,
the videotaped witness testimony in his original petition and his own
interrogation at a different time and place in his amended petition.
Pp. 656–660.
(c) Felix’s contention that the trial itself is the appropriate “transac
tion” or “occurrence” artificially truncates his claims by homing in only
on what makes those claims actionable in a habeas proceeding. Al
though his self-incrimination claim did not ripen until the prosecutor
introduced his pretrial statements at trial, the essential predicate for
his Fifth Amendment claim was an extrajudicial event, i. e., an out-of
court police interrogation. The dispositive question in an adjudication
of that claim would be the character of the police interrogation, specifi
cally, did Felix answer voluntarily or were his statements coerced. See
Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 513–514. Under Habeas Corpus
Rule 2(c)’s particularity-in-pleading requirement, Felix’s Confrontation
Clause claim would be pleaded discretely, as would his self-incrimination
claim. Each separate congeries of facts supporting the grounds for re
lief, the Rule suggests, would delineate an “occurrence.” Felix’s and
the Ninth Circuit’s approach is boundless by comparison, allowing a mis
cellany of claims for relief to be raised later rather than sooner and to
relate back. If claims asserted after the one-year period could be re
vived simply because they relate to the same trial, conviction, or sen
tence as a timely filed claim, AEDPA’s limitation period would have slim
significance. Pp. 660–663.
(d) Felix’s argument that a firm check against petition amendments
presenting new, discrete claims after AEDPA’s limitation period has run
is provided by Rule 15(a)—which gives district courts discretion to deny

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
647 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Syllabus
petition amendments once a responsive pleading has been filed—over
looks a pleader’s right to amend without leave of court “any time before
a responsive pleading is served.” That time can be long under Habeas
Corpus Rule 4, pursuant to which a petition is not served until the judge
first examines it to determine whether “it plainly appears . . . that the
petitioner is not entitled to relief.” This Court’s reading that relation
back will be in order so long as the original and amended petitions state
claims that are tied to a common core of operative facts is consist
ent with Rule 15(c)(2)’s general application in civil cases, with Habeas
Corpus Rule 2(c), and with AEDPA’s tight time line for petitions.
Pp. 663–664.
379 F. 3d 612, reversed and remanded.
Ginsburg, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist,
C. J., and O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined.
Souter, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, J., joined, post,
p. 665.
Mathew Chan, Deputy Attorney General of California, ar
gued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Manuel M. Medeiros, State
Solicitor General, Robert R. Anderson, Chief Assistant At
torney General, Mary Jo Graves, Senior Assistant Attorney
General, and Janet E. Neeley and Ward A. Campbell, Super
vising Deputy Attorneys General.
Lisa S. Blatt argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were
Acting Solicitor General Clement, Assistant Attorney Gen
eral Wray, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and Richard
A. Friedman.
David M. Porter argued the cause and filed a brief for
respondent.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Ari
zona et al. by Terry Goddard, Attorney General of Arizona, Mary
O’Grady, State Solicitor General, Randall M. Howe, Criminal Appeals
Section Chief, Michael O’Toole, Assistant Attorney General, and Dan
Schweitzer, by Roberto J. Sa´ nchez Ramos, Secretary of Justice of Puerto
Rico, by Scott J. Nordstrand, Acting Attorney General of Alaska, and by
the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Mike Beebe
of Arkansas, John W. Suthers of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware,

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
648 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case involves two federal prescriptions: the one-year
limitation period imposed on federal habeas corpus petition
ers by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996 (AEDPA), 28 U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1); and the rule that
pleading amendments relate back to the filing date of the
original pleading when both the original plea and the amend
ment arise out of the same “conduct, transaction, or occur
rence,” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(c)(2).
Jacoby Lee Felix, California prisoner and federal habeas
petitioner, was convicted in California state court of first
degree murder and second-degree robbery, and received
a life sentence. Within the one-year limitation period
AEDPA allows for habeas petitions, Felix filed a pro se peti
tion in federal court. He initially alleged, inter alia, that
the admission into evidence of videotaped testimony of a wit
ness for the prosecution violated his rights under the Sixth
Amendment’s Confrontation Clause. Five months after the
expiration of AEDPA’s time limit, and eight months after the
federal court appointed counsel to represent him, Felix filed
Charles J. Crist, Jr., of Florida, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lawrence G.
Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa,
Phill Kline of Kansas, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas F.
Reilly of Massachusetts, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay)
Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska,
Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Jim Petro of Ohio, W. A. Drew Edmondson
of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsyl
vania, Henry D. McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence E. Long of South
Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L.
Shurtleff of Utah, Judith Williams Jagdmann of Virginia, Rob McKenna
of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia, Peggy A.
Lautenschlager of Wisconsin, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; and for
the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles
L. Hobson.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for Albert Alschuler
et al. by Seth P. Waxman and David W. Ogden; and for Professor Arthur
R. Miller et al. by Carter G. Phillips, Jeffrey T. Green, and Eric A.
Shumsky.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
649 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
an amended petition in which he added a new claim for relief:
He asserted that, in the course of pretrial interrogation,
the police used coercive tactics to obtain damaging state
ments from him, and that admission of those statements
at trial violated his Fifth Amendment right against self
incrimination. The question presented concerns the timeli
ness of Felix’s Fifth Amendment claim.
In ordinary civil proceedings, the governing Rule, Rule 8
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, requires only
“a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the
pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(a)(2).
Rule 2(c) of the Rules Governing Habeas Corpus Cases re
quires a more detailed statement. The habeas rule in
structs the petitioner to “specify all the grounds for relief
available to [him]” and to “state the facts supporting each
ground.” 1 By statute, Congress provided that a habeas pe
tition “may be amended . . . as provided in the rules of proce
dure applicable to civil actions.” 28 U. S. C. § 2242. The
Civil Rule on amended pleadings, Rule 15 of the Federal
Rules of Civil Procedure, instructs: “An amendment of a
pleading relates back to the date of the original pleading
when . . . the claim . . . asserted in the amended pleading
arose out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth
or attempted to be set forth in the original pleading.” Fed.
Rule Civ. Proc. 15(c)(2).
The issue before us is one on which federal appellate
courts have divided: Whether, under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 15(c)(2), Felix’s amended petition, filed after
AEDPA’s one-year limitation and targeting his pretrial
statements, relates back to the date of his original timely
filed petition, which targeted the videotaped witness testi
mony. Felix urges, and the Court of Appeals held, that the
1 The Habeas Corpus Rules were recently amended, effective December
1, 2004. Because the amended Rules are not materially different from
those in effect when Felix filed his habeas petition, this opinion refers to
the current version of the Rules.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
650 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
amended petition qualifies for relation back because both the
original petition and the amended pleading arose from the
same trial and conviction. We reverse the Court of Appeals’
judgment in this regard. An amended habeas petition, we
hold, does not relate back (and thereby escape AEDPA’s
one-year time limit) when it asserts a new ground for relief
supported by facts that differ in both time and type from
those the original pleading set forth.
I
In 1995, after a jury trial in Sacramento, California, re
spondent Jacoby Lee Felix was found guilty of murder and
robbery stemming from his participation in a carjacking in
which the driver of the car was shot and killed. App. E to
Pet. for Cert. 2–7. He was sentenced to life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole. App. C to Pet. for Cert.
1–2. The current controversy centers on two alleged errors
at Felix’s trial. Both involve the admission of out-of-court
statements during the prosecutor’s case in chief, but the two
are otherwise unrelated. One prompted a Fifth Amend
ment self-incrimination objection originally raised in the
trial court, the other, a Sixth Amendment Confrontation
Clause challenge, also raised in the trial proceedings.
Felix’s Fifth Amendment claim rested on the prosecution’s
introduction of statements Felix made during pretrial police
interrogation. These statements were adduced at trial on
direct examination of the investigating officer. Felix urged
that the police used coercive tactics to elicit the statements.
Id., at 8–9. His Sixth Amendment claim related to the ad
mission of the videotaped statements prosecution witness
Kenneth Williams made at a jailhouse interview. The video
tape records Williams, a friend of Felix, telling the police
that he had overheard a conversation in which Felix de
scribed the planned robbery just before it occurred. When
Williams testified at trial that he did not recall the police
interview, the trial court determined that Williams’ loss of

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
651 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
memory was feigned, and that the videotape was admissible
because it contained prior inconsistent statements. App. E
to Pet. for Cert. 10–13.
On direct appeal, Felix urged, inter alia, that the admis
sion of Williams’ videotaped statements violated Felix’s con
stitutional right to confront the witnesses against him. He
did not, however, argue that admission of his own pretrial
statements violated his right to protection against self
incrimination. The intermediate appellate court affirmed
Felix’s conviction and sentence, id., at 10–13, 17, and the Cal
ifornia Supreme Court denied his petition for review, App. F
to Pet. for Cert. 2. Felix’s conviction became final on Au
gust 12, 1997. App. C to Pet. for Cert. 10.
Under AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations, Felix had
until August 12, 1998, to file a petition for a writ of ha
beas corpus in federal district court. See § 2244(d)(1)(A).
Within the one-year period, on May 8, 1998, he filed a pro se
petition for federal habeas relief. Felix’s federal petition re
peated his Sixth Amendment objection to the admission of
the Williams videotape, but he again failed to reassert the
objection he made in the trial court to the admission of his
own pretrial statements. App. G to Pet. for Cert. 1–7. On
May 29, 1998, a Magistrate Judge appointed counsel to repre
sent Felix. App. C to Pet. for Cert. 6; App. H to Pet. for
Cert. 2. Thereafter, on September 15, 1998, the Magistrate
Judge ordered Felix to file an amended petition within 30
days. Id., at 3. On Felix’s unopposed requests, that period
was successively extended. Id., at 4–5. Pending the filing
of an amended petition, the State was not required to inter
pose an answer.
On January 28, 1999, over five months after the August 12,
1998 expiration of AEDPA’s time limit, and eight months
after the appointment of counsel to represent him, Felix filed
an amended petition. Id., at 5. In this pleading, he reas
serted his Confrontation Clause claim, and also asserted, for
the first time post-trial, that his own pretrial statements to

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
652 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
the police were coerced and therefore inadmissible at trial.
App. I to Pet. for Cert. 4. Further, he alleged that his coun
sel on appeal to the California intermediate appellate court
was ineffective in failing to raise the coerced confession claim
on direct appeal. Id., at 18–19.2 In its answer to the
amended petition, the State asserted that the Fifth Amend
ment claim was time barred because it was initially raised
after the expiration of AEDPA’s one-year limitation period.
Felix argued in response that the new claim related back
to the date of his original petition. Because both Fifth
Amendment and Confrontation Clause claims challenged
the constitutionality of the same criminal conviction, Felix
urged, the Fifth Amendment claim arose out of the “con
duct, transaction, or occurrence set forth . . . in the original
pleading,” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(c)(2). App. C to Pet. for
Cert. 16.
The Magistrate Judge recommended dismissal of Felix’s
Fifth Amendment coerced statements claim. Relation back
was not in order, the Magistrate said, because Felix’s “alleg
edly involuntary statements to police d[id] not arise out of
the same conduct, transaction or occurrence as the video
taped interrogation of [prosecution witness] Kenneth Wil
liams.” Ibid. It did not suffice, the Magistrate observed,
that Felix’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment claims attack the
same criminal conviction. Ibid. Adopting the Magistrate
Judge’s report and recommendation in full, the District
2 Because Felix had not presented his coerced statements Fifth Amend
ment claim on appeal to the California courts, the State moved to dismiss
the amended petition on the ground that it contained both exhausted and
unexhausted claims. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b)(1)(A); Brief for Respondent
6–7. Before the Magistrate Judge acted on the motion, Felix presented
the coerced statements/ineffective-assistance claim to the California Su
preme Court in a habeas petition. Opposition to Respondents’ Motion to
Dismiss in No. Civ. S–98–0828 WBS GGH P (ED Cal.), p. 3. After that
court denied the petition without comment, the State withdrew its motion
to dismiss. See Request to Vacate Hearing on Motion to Dismiss in
No. Civ. S–98–0828 WBS GGH P (ED Cal.), pp. 1–2.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
653 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
Court dismissed the Fifth Amendment claim as time barred,
and rejected the Confrontation Clause claim on its merits.
App. B to Pet. for Cert. 1–3.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir
cuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of Felix’s Con
frontation Clause claim, but reversed the dismissal of his
coerced statements claim and remanded that claim for fur
ther proceedings. 379 F. 3d 612 (2004). In the majority’s
view, the relevant “transaction” for purposes of Rule 15(c)(2)
was Felix’s “trial and conviction in state court.” Id., at 615.
Defining the transaction at any greater level of specificity,
the majority reasoned, would “unduly strai[n] the usual
meaning of ‘conduct, transaction, or occurrence’ ” by dividing
the “trial and conviction [into] a series of perhaps hundreds
of individual occurrences.” Ibid. Judge Tallman concurred
in part and dissented in part. In his view, defining “conduct,
transaction, or occurrence” under Rule 15(c)(2) “so broadly
that any claim stemming from pre-trial motions, the trial, or
sentencing relates back to a timely-filed habeas petition”
would “obliterat[e] AEDPA’s one year statute of limitation.”
Id., at 618. “While an amendment offered to clarify or am
plify the facts already alleged in support of a timely claim
may relate back,” he reasoned, “an amendment that intro
duces a new legal theory based on facts different from those
underlying the timely claim may not.” Id., at 621.
We granted certiorari, 543 U. S. 1042 (2005), to resolve the
conflict among Courts of Appeals on relation back of habeas
petition amendments. Compare 379 F. 3d, at 614 (if original
petition is timely filed, amendments referring to the same
trial and conviction may relate back); Ellzey v. United States,
324 F. 3d 521, 525–527 (CA7 2003) (same), with United States
v. Hicks, 283 F. 3d 380, 388–389 (CADC 2002) (relevant trans
action must be defined more narrowly than the trial and con
viction); United States v. Espinoza-Saenz, 235 F. 3d 501, 503–
505 (CA10 2000) (same); Davenport v. United States, 217
F. 3d 1341, 1344–1346 (CA11 2000) (same); United States v.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
654 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
Pittman, 209 F. 3d 314, 317–318 (CA4 2000) (same); United
States v. Duffus, 174 F. 3d 333, 337 (CA3 1999) (same);
United States v. Craycraft, 167 F. 3d 451, 457 (CA8 1999)
(same). We now reverse the Ninth Circuit’s judgment to
the extent that it allowed relation back of Felix’s Fifth
Amendment claim.
II
A
In enacting AEDPA in 1996, Congress imposed for the
first time a fixed time limit for collateral attacks in federal
court on a judgment of conviction. Section 2244(d)(1) pro
vides: “A 1-year period of limitation shall apply to an applica
tion for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursu
ant to the judgment of a State court.” See also § 2255, ¶ 6
(providing one-year limitation period in which to file a mo
tion to vacate a federal conviction).3
A discrete set of Rules governs federal habeas proceedings
launched by state prisoners. See Rules Governing Section
2254 Cases in the United States District Courts.4 The last
of those Rules, Habeas Corpus Rule 11, permits application
of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in habeas cases “to
the extent that [the civil rules] are not inconsistent with any
statutory provisions or [the habeas] rules.” See also Fed.
Rule Civ. Proc. 81(a)(2) (The civil rules “are applicable to
proceedings for . . . habeas corpus.”). Rule 11, the Advisory
Committee’s Notes caution, “permits application of the civil
rules only when it would be appropriate to do so,” and would
not be “inconsistent or inequitable in the overall framework
of habeas corpus.” Advisory Committee’s Note on Habeas
Corpus Rule 11, 28 U. S. C., p. 480. In addition to the gen
eral prescriptions on application of the civil rules in federal
3 Section 2255 establishes a separate avenue for postconviction chal
lenges to federal, as opposed to state, convictions.
4 Habeas corpus proceedings are characterized as civil in nature. See,
e. g., Fisher v. Baker, 203 U. S. 174, 181 (1906).

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
655 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
habeas cases, § 2242 specifically provides that habeas applica
tions “may be amended . . . as provided in the rules of proce
dure applicable to civil actions.”
The Civil Rule governing pleading amendments, Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 15, made applicable to habeas pro
ceedings by § 2242, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 81(a)(2),
and Habeas Corpus Rule 11, allows pleading amendments
with “leave of court” any time during a proceeding. See
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(a). Before a responsive pleading is
served, pleadings may be amended once as a “matter of
course,” i. e., without seeking court leave. Ibid. Amend
ments made after the statute of limitations has run relate
back to the date of the original pleading if the original and
amended pleadings “ar[i]se out of the conduct, transaction,
or occurrence.” Rule 15(c)(2).
The “original pleading” to which Rule 15 refers is the com
plaint in an ordinary civil case, and the petition in a habeas
proceeding. Under Rule 8(a), applicable to ordinary civil
proceedings, a complaint need only provide “fair notice of
what the plaintiff ’s claim is and the grounds upon which it
rests.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 47 (1957). Habeas
Corpus Rule 2(c) is more demanding. It provides that the
petition must “specify all the grounds for relief available to
the petitioner” and “state the facts supporting each ground.”
See also Advisory Committee’s Note on subd. (c) of Habeas
Corpus Rule 2, 28 U. S. C., p. 469 (“In the past, petitions have
frequently contained mere conclusions of law, unsupported
by any facts. [But] it is the relationship of the facts to the
claim asserted that is important . . . .”); Advisory Commit
tee’s Note on Habeas Corpus Rule 4, 28 U. S. C., p. 471
(“ ‘[N]otice’ pleading is not sufficient, for the petition is ex
pected to state facts that point to a real possibility of consti
tutional error.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Ac
cordingly, the model form available to aid prisoners in filing
their habeas petitions instructs in boldface:

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
656 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
“CAUTION: You must include in this petition all the
grounds for relief from the conviction or sentence
that you challenge. And you must state the facts
that support each ground. If you fail to set forth all
the grounds in this petition, you may be barred from
presenting additional grounds at a later date.” Pe
tition for Relief From a Conviction or Sentence By a
Person in State Custody, Habeas Corpus Rules, Forms
App., 28 U. S. C., p. 685 (2000 ed., Supp. V) (emphasis
in original).
A prime purpose of Rule 2(c)’s demand that habeas peti
tioners plead with particularity is to assist the district court
in determining whether the State should be ordered to
“show cause why the writ should not be granted.” § 2243.
Under Habeas Corpus Rule 4, if “it plainly appears from the
petition . . . that the petitioner is not entitled to relief in the
district court,” the court must summarily dismiss the peti
tion without ordering a responsive pleading. If the court
orders the State to file an answer, that pleading must “ad
dress the allegations in the petition.” Rule 5(b).
B
This case turns on the meaning of Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 15(c)(2)’s relation-back provision in the context of
federal habeas proceedings and AEDPA’s one-year statute of
limitations. Rule 15(c)(2), as earlier stated, provides that
pleading amendments relate back to the date of the original
pleading when the claim asserted in the amended plea “arose
out of the conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth or
attempted to be set forth in the original pleading.” The key
words are “conduct, transaction, or occurrence.” The Ninth
Circuit, whose judgment we here review, in accord with the
Seventh Circuit, defines those words to allow relation back
of a claim first asserted in an amended petition, so long as
the new claim stems from the habeas petitioner’s trial, con
viction, or sentence. Under that comprehensive definition,

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
657 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
virtually any new claim introduced in an amended petition
will relate back, for federal habeas claims, by their very na
ture, challenge the constitutionality of a conviction or sen
tence, and commonly attack proceedings anterior thereto.
See Espinoza-Saenz, 235 F. 3d, at 505 (A “majority of amend
ments” to habeas petitions raise issues falling under the
“broad umbrella” of “a defendant’s trial and sentencing.”);
Hicks, 283 F. 3d, at 388.
The majority of Circuits, mindful of “Congress’ decision to
expedite collateral attacks by placing stringent time restric
tions on [them],” ibid., define “conduct, transaction, or occur
rence” in federal habeas cases less broadly. See id., at 388–
389; Espinoza-Saenz, 235 F. 3d, at 503–505; Davenport, 217
F. 3d, at 1344–1346; Pittman, 209 F. 3d, at 317–318; Duffus,
174 F. 3d, at 337; Craycraft, 167 F. 3d, at 457. They allow
relation back only when the claims added by amendment
arise from the same core facts as the timely filed claims, and
not when the new claims depend upon events separate in
“both time and type” from the originally raised episodes.
Ibid. Because Felix’s own pretrial statements, newly raised
in his amended petition, were separated in time and type
from witness Williams’ videotaped statements, raised in Fe
lix’s original petition, the former would not relate back under
the definition of “conduct, transaction, or occurrence” to
which most Circuits adhere.
We are not aware, in the run-of-the-mine civil proceedings
Rule 15 governs, of any reading of “conduct, transaction, or
occurrence” as capacious as the construction the Ninth and
Seventh Circuits have adopted for habeas cases. Compare
Maegdlin v. International Assn. of Machinists and Aero
space Workers, 309 F. 3d 1051, 1052 (CA8 2002) (allowing
relation back where original complaint alleged that defend
ant union had breached its duty of fair representation by
inadequately representing plaintiff because of his gender,
and amended complaint asserted a Title VII gender discrimi
nation claim based on the same differential treatment); Clip

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
658 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
per Exxpress v. Rocky Mountain Motor Tariff Bureau, Inc.,
690 F. 2d 1240, 1246, 1259, n. 29 (CA9 1982) (claim asserting
that defendant included fraudulent information in rate pro
tests filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission related
back to original complaint, which asserted that defendant
filed the same rate protests “for the purpose of . . . restrict
ing . . . competition” (internal quotation marks omitted)); 5
Santana v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 686 F. 2d 736, 738 (CA9 1982)
(original complaint alleging slander and amendment alleging
interference with employment relations arose out of the
same conduct or occurrence because both were based on
defendant’s making allegedly untruthful statements about
plaintiff ’s behavior to plaintiff ’s employer); Rural Fire Pro
tection Co. v. Hepp, 366 F. 2d 355, 361–362 (CA9 1966) (in a
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 suit alleging minimum
wage violations for certain pay periods, amendment assert
ing the same type of violation during an additional pay pe
riod related back), with Nettis v. Levitt, 241 F. 3d 186, 193
(CA2 2001) (disallowing relation back where Nettis’ original
complaint alleged that his employer retaliated in response to
Nettis’ objections to employer’s sales tax collection proce
dure, and amendment alleged retaliation for Nettis’ report
of payroll and inventory irregularities); In re Coastal Plains,
Inc., 179 F. 3d 197, 216 (CA5 1999) (Coastal Plains’s claim
that creditor interfered with business relations by attempt
5 The dissent asserts that Clipper Exxpress is comparable to this case
in according Rule 15(c)(2) a “ ‘capacious’ ” reading. Post, at 668, n. 2.
Clipper Exxpress involved a series of allegedly sham protests, commonly
designed to restrain trade, a charge of the pattern or practice type. The
amendment in question added a fraud charge, a new legal theory tied to
the same operative facts as those initially alleged. 690 F. 2d, at 1259,
n. 29. That unremarkable application of the relation-back rule bears little
resemblance to the argument made by Felix and embraced by the dis
sent—that all manner of factually and temporally unrelated conduct may
be raised after the statute of limitations has run and relate back, so long
as the new and originally pleaded claims challenge the same conviction.
See infra, at 659–661.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
659 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
ing to sell Coastal Plains to a third party did not relate back
to claim based on creditor’s failure to return inventory to
Coastal Plains, even though both claims were linked to credi
tor’s alleged “broader plan to destroy Coastal [Plains]”); Si
erra Club v. Penfold, 857 F. 2d 1307, 1315–1316 (CA9 1988)
(where original complaint challenged the manner in which an
agency applied a regulation, an amendment challenging the
agency’s “conduct in adopting the regulatio[n]” did not relate
back). See also Jackson v. Suffolk County Homicide Bu
reau, 135 F. 3d 254, 256 (CA2 1998) (although all of plaintiff ’s
42 U. S. C. § 1983 claims arose out of a single state-court
criminal proceeding, plaintiff ’s First Amendment claims did
not arise out of the same conduct as the originally asserted
excessive force claims, and therefore did not relate back).
As these decisions illustrate, Rule 15(c)(2) relaxes, but does
not obliterate, the statute of limitations; hence relation back
depends on the existence of a common “core of operative
facts” uniting the original and newly asserted claims. See
Clipper Exxpress, 690 F. 2d, at 1259, n. 29; 6A C. Wright,
A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1497,
p. 85 (2d ed. 1990).
Felix asserts that he seeks, and the Ninth Circuit ac
corded, no wider range for Rule 15(c)’s relation-back provi
sion than this Court gave to the Rule’s key words “conduct,
transaction, or occurrence” in Tiller v. Atlantic Coast Line
R. Co., 323 U. S. 574, 580–581 (1945). We disagree. In Til
ler, a railroad worker was struck and killed by a railroad car.
His widow sued under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act,
45 U. S. C. § 51 et seq., to recover for his wrongful death.
She initially alleged various negligent acts. In an amended
complaint, she added a claim under the Federal Boiler In
spection Act for failure to provide the train’s locomotive with
a rear light. We held that the amendment related back, and
therefore avoided a statute of limitations bar, even though
the amendment invoked a legal theory not suggested by the
original complaint and relied on facts not originally asserted.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
660 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
There was but one episode-in-suit in Tiller, a worker’s
death attributed from the start to the railroad’s failure to
provide its employee with a reasonably safe place to work.
The federal rulemakers recognized that personal injury
plaintiffs often cannot pinpoint the precise cause of an injury
prior to discovery. See 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal
Practice and Procedure § 1215, pp. 138–143 (2d ed. 1990).
They therefore included in the Appendix to the Federal
Rules an illustrative form indicating that a personal injury
plaintiff could adequately state a claim for relief simply by
alleging that the defendant negligently operated a certain
instrumentality at a particular time and place. See Form 9,
Complaint for Negligence, Forms App., Fed. Rule Civ. Proc.,
28 U. S. C. App., p. 829. The widow in Tiller met that meas
ure. She based her complaint on a single “occurrence,” an
accident resulting in her husband’s death. In contrast, Felix
targeted separate episodes, the pretrial police interrogation
of witness Williams in his original petition and his own in
terrogation at a different time and place in his amended
petition.
Felix contends, however, that his amended petition quali
fies for relation back because the trial itself is the “transac
tion” or “occurrence” that counts. See Brief for Respondent
21–23. Citing Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U. S. 760 (2003) (plu
rality opinion), Felix urges that neither the videotaped inter
view with witness Williams nor the pretrial police interroga
tion to which Felix himself was exposed transgressed any
constitutional limitation. Until the statements elicited by
the police were introduced at trial, Felix argues, he had no
actionable claim at all. Both the confrontation right he
timely presented and the privilege against self-incrimination
he asserted in his amended petition are “trial right[s],” Felix
underscores. Brief for Respondent 21 (emphasis deleted).
His claims based on those rights, he maintains, are not “sepa
rate,” id., at 22; rather, they are related in time and type,
for “they arose on successive days during the trial and both

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
661 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
challenged [on constitutional grounds] admission of pretrial
statements,” id., at 22–23.
Felix artificially truncates his claims by homing in only on
what makes them actionable in a habeas proceeding. We do
not here question his assertion that his Fifth Amendment
right did not ripen until his statements were admitted
against him at trial. See Chavez, 538 U. S., at 766–767.
Even so, the essential predicate for his self-incrimination
claim was an extrajudicial event, i. e., an out-of-court police
interrogation. The dispositive question in an adjudication
of that claim would be the character of Felix’s conduct, not
in court, but at the police interrogation, specifically, did he
answer voluntarily or were his statements coerced. See
Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 513–514 (1963) (vol
untariness is evaluated by examining the “totality of cir
cumstances” surrounding the “making and signing of the
challenged confession”).
Habeas Corpus Rule 2(c), we earlier noted, see supra, at
655–656, instructs petitioners to “specify all [available]
grounds for relief ” and to “state the facts supporting each
ground.” Under that Rule, Felix’s Confrontation Clause
claim would be pleaded discretely, as would his self
incrimination claim. Each separate congeries of facts sup
porting the grounds for relief, the Rule suggests, would de
lineate an “occurrence.” Felix’s approach, the approach that
prevailed in the Ninth Circuit, is boundless by comparison.
A miscellany of claims for relief could be raised later rather
than sooner and relate back, for “conduct, transaction, or oc
currence” would be defined to encompass any pretrial, trial,
or post-trial error that could provide a basis for challenging
the conviction. An approach of that breadth, as the Fourth
Circuit observed, “views ‘occurrence’ at too high a level of
generality.” Pittman, 209 F. 3d, at 318.6
6 The dissent builds a complex discussion on an apparent assumption
that claim preclusion operates in habeas cases largely as it does in mine
run civil cases. See post, at 673–674. Ironically, few habeas petitions

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
662 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
Congress enacted AEDPA to advance the finality of crimi
nal convictions. See Rhines v. Weber, 544 U. S. 269, 276
(2005). To that end, it adopted a tight time line, a one-year
limitation period ordinarily running 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,” 28
U. S. C. § 2244(d)(1)(A). If claims asserted after the one
year period could be revived simply because they relate to
the same trial, conviction, or sentence as a timely filed claim,
AEDPA’s limitation period would have slim significance.
See 379 F. 3d, at 619 (Tallman, J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part) (Ninth Circuit’s rule would permit “the
‘relation back’ doctrine to swallow AEDPA’s statute of limi
tation”); Pittman, 209 F. 3d, at 318 (“If we were to craft such
a rule, it would mean that amendments . . . would almost
invariably be allowed even after the statute of limitations
had expired, because most [habeas] claims arise from a crimi
nal defendant’s underlying conviction and sentence.”); Duf
fus, 174 F. 3d, at 338 (“A prisoner should not be able to assert
a claim otherwise barred by the statute of limitations merely
because he asserted a separate claim within the limitations
period.”). The very purpose of Rule 15(c)(2), as the dissent
notes, is to “qualify a statute of limitations.” Post, at 666.
would survive swift dismissal were that so, for the very objective of the
petition is to undo a final judgment after direct appeals have been ex
hausted or are time barred. On judicial and legislative development of
standards governing successive habeas petitions, standards that do not
track the Restatement of Judgments, see Schlup v. Delo, 513 U. S. 298,
317–320 (1995); 2 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice
and Procedure § 28.2b, pp. 1270–1275 (4th ed. 2001); Note, Developments
in the Law—Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038, 1113, 1148–
1154 (1970). The dissent would read Rule 15(c)(2)’s words, “conduct,
transaction, or occurrence,” into AEDPA’s provisions governing second or
successive petitions and motions (28 U. S. C. §§ 2244(b) and 2255, ¶ 8), al
though Congress did not put those words there. Nor is there any other
reason to believe that Congress designed AEDPA’s confinement of succes
sive petitions and motions with a view to the relation-back concept em
ployed in Rule 15(c)(2).

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
663 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Opinion of the Court
But “qualify” does not mean repeal. See Fuller v. Marx,
724 F. 2d 717, 720 (CA8 1984). Given AEDPA’s “finality”
and “federalism” concerns, see Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S.
420, 436 (2000); Hicks, 283 F. 3d, at 389, it would be anoma
lous to allow relation back under Rule 15(c)(2) based on a
broader reading of the words “conduct, transaction, or occur
rence” in federal habeas proceedings than in ordinary civil
litigation, see supra, at 657–659.
Felix urges that an unconstrained reading of Rule 15(c)(2)
is not problematic because Rule 15(a) arms district courts
with “ample power” to deny leave to amend when justice
so requires. See Brief for Respondent 31–33. Under that
Rule, once a responsive pleading has been filed, a prisoner
may amend the petition “only by leave of court or by written
consent of the adverse party.” Rule 15(a); see Ellzey v.
United States, 324 F. 3d, at 526 (AEDPA’s aim to “expedite
resolution of collateral attacks . . . should influence the exer
cise of discretion under Rule 15(a)—which gives the district
judge the right to disapprove proposed amendments that
would unduly prolong or complicate the case.”). This argu
ment overlooks a pleader’s right to amend without leave of
court “any time before a responsive pleading is served.”
Rule 15(a). In federal habeas cases that time can be rather
long, as indeed it was in the instant case. See supra, at 651.
Under Habeas Corpus Rule 4, a petition is not immediately
served on the respondent. The judge first examines the
pleading to determine whether “it plainly appears . . . that
the petitioner is not entitled to relief.” Only if the petition
survives that preliminary inspection will the judge “order
the respondent to file an answer.” In the interim, the peti
tioner may amend his pleading “as a matter of course,” as
Felix did in this very case. Rule 15(a). Accordingly, we do
not regard Rule 15(a) as a firm check against petition amend
ments that present new claims dependent upon discrete facts
after AEDPA’s limitation period has run.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
664 MAYLE v. FELIX
Opinion of the Court
Our rejection of Felix’s translation of same “conduct,
transaction, or occurrence” to mean same “trial, conviction,
or sentence” scarcely leaves Rule 15(c)(2) “meaningless in
the habeas context,” 379 F. 3d, at 615. So long as the origi
nal and amended petitions state claims that are tied to a
common core of operative facts, relation back will be in
order.7 Our reading is consistent with the general applica
tion of Rule 15(c)(2) in civil cases, see supra, at 657–659, with
Habeas Corpus Rule 2(c), see supra, at 655–656, and with
AEDPA’s installation of a tight time line for § 2254 petitions,
see supra, at 662–663.8
7 For example, in Mandacina v. United States, 328 F. 3d 995, 1000–1001
(CA8 2003), the original petition alleged violations of Brady v. Maryland,
373 U. S. 83 (1963), while the amended petition alleged the Government’s
failure to disclose a particular report. Both pleadings related to evidence
obtained at the same time by the same police department. The Court of
Appeals approved relation back. And in Woodward v. Williams, 263 F. 3d
1135, 1142 (CA10 2001), the appeals court upheld relation back where the
original petition challenged the trial court’s admission of recanted state
ments, while the amended petition challenged the court’s refusal to allow
the defendant to show that the statements had been recanted. See also
3 J. Moore et al., Moore’s Federal Practice § 15.19[2], p. 15–82 (3d ed. 2004)
(relation back ordinarily allowed “when the new claim is based on the
same facts as the original pleading and only changes the legal theory”).
8 The dissent is concerned that our decision “creates an unfair disparity
between indigent habeas petitioners and those able to afford their own
counsel.” Post, at 665; see post, at 675 (“[T]oday’s decision . . . will fall
most heavily on the shoulders of indigent habeas petitioners who can af
ford no counsel without the assistance of the court.”). The concern is
understandable, although we note that in Felix’s case, counsel was ap
pointed, and had some two and a half months to amend the petition before
AEDPA’s limitation period expired. See supra, at 651. That was ample
time to add a claim based on the alleged pretrial extraction of damaging
statements from Felix. Ordinarily, as we observed in Halbert v. Michi
gan, ante, at 624, n. 8, the government (federal or state) “ ‘need not equal
ize economic conditions’ between criminal defendants of lesser and greater
wealth” (quoting Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 23 (1956) (Frankfurter,
J., concurring in judgment)); see Pennsylvania v. Finley, 481 U. S. 551,
557 (1987) (holding that States need not provide appointed counsel in post
conviction proceedings). This case, it is inescapably true, does not fit

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
665 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
* * *
As to the question presented, for the reasons stated, the
judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens joins,
dissenting.
This case requires the Court to decide how the relation
back provision of Rule 15(c)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure ought to apply in federal habeas corpus cases,
when neither text nor precedent provides clear guidance.
I see nothing in habeas law or practice that calls for the
Court’s narrow construction of the rule, and good reasons to
go the other way, including the unfortunate consequence that
the Court’s view creates an unfair disparity between indi
gent habeas petitioners and those able to afford their own
counsel. I respectfully dissent.
I
At the outset, there is need for care in understanding the
narrow scope of the problem this case presents. A habeas
petitioner’s opportunity to amend as a matter of course,
without permission of the trial court, exists only before the
responsive pleading is served, and even then only once.
Rule 15(a). After one amendment, or after the government
files the answer or other response, assuming one is even re
quired, see Habeas Corpus Rule 4, the prisoner may not
amend without the court’s leave or the government’s consent,
Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 15(a). While leave to amend “shall be
freely given when justice so requires,” ibid., justice does,
within the confined circumstances in which our decisions require appoint
ment of counsel for an indigent litigant at a critical stage to ensure his
meaningful access to justice. See Halbert, ante, at 610–612, 624, n. 8.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
666 MAYLE v. FELIX
Souter, J., dissenting
after all, have to require it, and the District Courts will pre
sumably say no, for example, in the face of unjustifiable delay
or threatened prejudice to the State. See Foman v. Davis,
371 U. S. 178, 182 (1962); see also Brief for Professor Arthur
R. Miller et al. as Amici Curiae 20–21 (describing reasons
courts regularly deny leave to amend and citing cases); 6 C.
Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Proce
dure §§ 1487–1488 (2d ed. 1990) (hereinafter Wright & Miller)
(discussing reasons leave to amend may be and often is de
nied, including delay and prejudice). The Court’s concern
for “unconstrained” recourse to petition amendments, ante,
at 663, is thus misplaced.
The limited opportunity to amend also supplies perspec
tive on the claim that Felix’s reading of the relation back
rule would undermine the 1-year limitation period of the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996
(AEDPA) and the statute’s concomitant concern for finality
of judgments. See ante, at 662, 663. In fact, AEDPA’s ob
jectives bear little weight in the analysis, because the very
point of every relation back rule is to qualify a statute of
limitations, and Rule 15(c) “is based on the notion that once
litigation involving particular conduct or a given transaction
or occurrence has been instituted, the parties are not entitled
to the protection of the statute of limitations against the
later assertion by amendment of defenses or claims that
arise out of the same conduct, transaction, or occurrence as
set forth in the original pleading.” 6A Wright & Miller
§ 1496, at 64. AEDPA’s statute of limitations, like any other,
may be trumped by relating back when the subject of the
amendment arises out of the same conduct, transaction, or
occurrence described in the original pleading, but that alone
does not help us figure out what conduct, transaction, or oc
currence is the same.
II
Felix’s disputed right to amend with relation back effect
turns entirely, as the Court says, ante, at 656, on how nar

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
667 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
rowly or how broadly the tripartite authorization for relation
back ought to be construed: whether the relevant “conduct,
transaction, or occurrence” 1 to which a habeas petition refers
includes the underlying trial (which resulted in the custody
being challenged) or is limited to the set of facts underlying
each trial ruling claimed to be constitutionally defective (in
this case, the unconfronted videotaped testimony and the in
terrogation that produced the incriminating statement). If
the former, a habeas petitioner will have the benefit of rela
tion back for any amendment raising trial error, subject to
the district judge’s discretion to deny leave except for the
one amendment of right; if the latter, a petitioner is effec
tively precluded from making any amendment unless a single
trial ruling amounts to distinct errors or an underlying fact
is the subject of distinct rulings, notwithstanding Congress’s
evident intent to provide relation back in habeas proceed
ings, see 28 U. S. C. § 2242; Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 81(a)(2); Ha
beas Corpus Rule 11.
The text alone does not tell us the answer, for either the
facts specific to the claim or the trial as a whole could be the
relevant “conduct, transaction, or occurrence.” The Court
assumes that the former approach is correct and then pro
ceeds to explain, based on that assumption, the infirmity of
a contrary approach. For example, the Court asserts that
under Felix’s rule, “all manner of factually and temporally
unrelated conduct may be raised after the statute of limita
tions has run . . . .” Ante, at 658, n. 5. But in saying this
the Court presumes that the relevant transaction is what
occurred outside the courtroom. Felix’s entire argument is
that the proper transaction is instead what occurred in court,
namely, the imposition of the conviction that justifies the
challenged custody. If he is right, then the Court’s assertion
is incorrect, for what Felix seeks to add is a claim not about
1 There is a tendency toward the gestalt in reading the phrase, but the
three items are distinct, and a party claiming the benefit of the rule need
satisfy only one.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
668 MAYLE v. FELIX
Souter, J., dissenting
“factually and temporally unrelated conduct,” ibid., but
about conduct that occurred at the same trial as the conduct
addressed in the initial petition. That newly addressed con
duct will hardly be “temporally unrelated” to what was pre
viously targeted; it likely will have occurred on the same day
of trial as the original conduct or within a few days. Nor
will it be “factually . . . unrelated” to the previously raised
in-court conduct, for it will almost certainly involve the same
judge, the same parties and attorneys, the same courtroom,
and the same jurors. Again, my point is just that much of
the Court’s argument lacks force because it assumes that
the proper transaction is what occurred outside the court
room rather than inside, when that is the question we must
answer.
The Court also cautions that “it would be anomalous to
allow relation back under Rule 15(c)(2) based on a broader
reading of the words ‘conduct, transaction, or occurrence’ in
federal habeas proceedings than in ordinary civil litigation.”
Ante, at 663. The cases the Court cites to establish the
scope of civil relation back, however, see ante, at 657–660,
simply stand for the proposition that an amendment relates
back only if it deals with the same conduct, transaction, or
occurrence. Felix does not purport to claim anything more.2
2 In any event, it is not clear why it is more “capacious,” ante, at 657,
to regard a single trial lasting days or weeks as one transaction or occur
rence than it is, for example, to view numerous separate protests filed
with the Interstate Commerce Commission over a period of two years
(each in response to a different proposed tariff amendment) as one trans
action or occurrence, see Clipper Exxpress v. Rocky Mountain Motor
Tariff Bureau, Inc., 690 F. 2d 1240, 1260, n. 29 (CA9 1982) (“The protests
involve a single transaction or occurrence” (emphasis deleted)), cited ante,
at 657–658.
The Court responds that in Clipper Exxpress the amendment was “tied
to the same operative facts as those initially alleged.” Ante, at 658, n. 5.
But as just noted, those “operative facts” (i. e., the relevant transaction)
consisted of a number of separate protests filed with the Interstate Com
merce Commission over a period of two years, each in response to a differ
ent proposed tariff amendment. This is, to say the least, a rather expan
sive transaction, much more so in my view than a single trial involving

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
669 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
At first glance, an argument for the narrow reading urged
by petitioner Mayle inheres in the distinctive pleading re
quirement for habeas petitions. Unlike the generous
notice-pleading standard for the benefit of ordinary civil
plaintiffs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a), see
Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 47 (1957), Habeas Corpus
Rule 2(c) requires habeas petitioners to “specify all the
grounds for relief available,” and to “state the facts support
ing each ground.” The Court implies that because pleading
must be factually specific, the “conduct, transaction, or occur
rence” of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(c) must be spe
cifically factual to a parallel degree; as the Court puts it, a
habeas petitioner will plead claims “discretely,” ante, at 661,
such that each ground for relief “would delineate an ‘occur
rence,’ ” ibid. But this does not follow; all that follows from
“discret[e]” pleading is that each claim would delineate a sep
arate ground for relief, whatever may be the conduct, trans
action, or occurrence out of which the claims arise. As Til
ler v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 323 U. S. 574 (1945), and
the other civil cases the Court cites demonstrate, see ante,
at 657–660, relation back is regularly allowed when an
amendment raises a separate claim for relief arising out of
the same transaction or occurrence, no matter how discretely
that claim might be stated. Indeed, this is what the text
anticipates; Rule 15(c)(2) permits relation back when “the
claim or defense” asserted in the amendment arises out of
the same conduct, transaction, or occurrence set forth in the
original pleading. That is, the same conduct, transaction, or
occurrence can support multiple, discrete claims for relief.
Nor is there any policy underlying the particular habeas
pleading rule that requires a more grudging relation back
standard. As the Court concedes, ante, at 656, the purpose
of the heightened pleading standard in habeas cases is to
help a district court weed out frivolous petitions before call
(for all claims stemming from it) the same judge, the same parties, the
same attorneys, the same jury, the same indictment, and so on.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
670 MAYLE v. FELIX
Souter, J., dissenting
ing upon the State to answer. See Advisory Committee’s
Note on Habeas Corpus Rule 2, 28 U. S. C., p. 469; Advisory
Committee’s Note on Rule 4, id., at 471 (“[I]t is the duty of
the court to screen out frivolous applications and eliminate
the burden that would be placed on the respondent by order
ing an unnecessary answer”); 1 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Fed
eral Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure § 11.6, p. 573,
n. 3 (4th ed. 2001) (hereinafter Hertz & Liebman) (“[F]act
pleading, like other habeas corpus rules and practices, en
ables courts . . . to separate substantial petitions from insub
stantial ones quickly and without need of adversary proceed
ings”); Note, Developments in the Law—Federal Habeas
Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038, 1175 (1970) (“The justification
for stringent pleading requirements in habeas corpus is
thought to lie in the need to protect the courts from the
burden of entertaining frivolous applications”). Identifying
meritless claims has nothing to do with the effect of amend
ment to initial petitions for relief, except in the remote sense
that an amendment will require a district judge to examine
one more item. But there is no claim here that Federal Rule
of Civil Procedure 15(c) has to be narrow to protect judges;
the government is objecting because it wants fewer claims
to defend, and that objection is unrelated to the habeas fact
pleading standard.3
While considerations based on habeas pleading fail to pan
out with support for Mayle’s restricted reading of Rule 15(c),
several reasons convince me that Felix’s reading is right.
Most obvious is the fact that both of his claims can easily fit
within the same “transaction or occurrence,” understood as
3 Neither does the warning on the model habeas petition (that failure to
set forth every ground for relief may preclude the presentation of addi
tional grounds later) tell us anything about relation back. The Court im
plies that it does, ante, at 655–656, but the language on the form says
nothing about relation back, and if the Court’s implication were correct
then the warning would also bar amendments filed within the limitation
period.

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
671 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
a trial ending in conviction resulting in a single ultimate in
jury of unlawful custody. (“Conduct” sounds closer to un
derlying facts, perhaps, but Rule 15(c) turns on either con
duct, transaction, or occurrence.) The Court acknowledges
that Felix’s claims regarding his own interrogation and the
videotaped testimony of witness Kenneth Williams are po
tentially actionable here only because the resulting incrimi
nating statements were introduced at trial, ante, at 661, but
argues that they nevertheless arise out of separate transac
tions or occurrences because they rest on distinct “essential
predicate[s],” ibid., meaning pretrial acts. It is certainly
true that the claims depend on those distinct pretrial acts,
but the claims depend equally on the specified trial errors,
without which there would be no habeas claim: without the
introduction of each set of statements at trial, Felix would
have no argument for habeas relief, regardless of what hap
pened outside of court.4 The Court’s own opinion demon
strates this, as its descriptions of Felix’s two claims refer not
only to what happened outside court but also to what hap
pened at trial, and they specifically ground the alleged con
stitutional violations on the latter. See ante, at 648 (“He
initially alleged . . . that the admission into evidence of video
taped testimony of a witness for the prosecution violated his
rights under the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause”);
4 By contrast, use at trial of the fruits of the alleged police misconduct
would not be a prerequisite to success in an action under Rev. Stat. § 1979,
42 U. S. C. § 1983, because such an action would indeed be challenging the
conduct itself rather than the custody obtained by use at trial of the fruits
of that conduct. Cf. ante, at 659 (citing Jackson v. Suffolk County Homi
cide Bureau, 135 F. 3d 254 (CA2 1998), where the Court of Appeals, in a
§ 1983 case, concluded that two different instances of postarrest police con
duct were not part of a single transaction or occurrence). The Court’s
analysis thus lies in some tension with our understanding that the signal,
defining feature setting habeas cases apart from other tort claims against
the State is that they “necessarily demonstrat[e] the invalidity of the con
viction,” Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 481–482 (1994); see generally
Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U. S. 74, 78–82 (2005).

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
672 MAYLE v. FELIX
Souter, J., dissenting
ante, at 649 (“He asserted that, in the course of pretrial
interrogation, the police used coercive tactics to obtain dam
aging statements from him, and that admission of those
statements at trial violated his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination”).5 Moreover, habeas review will
of course look at more of the underlying trial record than
just the ruling admitting the disputed evidence, for Felix’s
claims like a great many others will call for examining the
trial record as a whole for signs of requisite prejudice or
reversible error.6 Here, for example, if a court were to con
clude that introducing Felix’s statements did violate the
Fifth Amendment, relief would still turn on whether the
5 There are other examples of the Court’s describing Felix’s claims with
reference to the trial. See ante, at 650 (“Felix’s Fifth Amendment claim
rested on the prosecution’s introduction of statements Felix made during
pretrial police interrogation. . . . His Sixth Amendment claim related to
the admission of the videotaped statements prosecution witness Kenneth
Williams made at a jailhouse interview”); ante, at 651 (“On direct appeal,
Felix urged . . . that the admission of Williams’ videotaped statements
violated Felix’s constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him.
He did not, however, argue that admission of his own pretrial statements
violated his right to protection against self-incrimination”).
6 See Neder v. United States, 527 U. S. 1, 18 (1999) (“The erroneous ad
mission of evidence in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee
against self-incrimination, and the erroneous exclusion of evidence in vio
lation of the right to confront witnesses guaranteed by the Sixth Amend
ment are both subject to harmless-error analysis under our cases” (cita
tions omitted)); Penry v. Johnson, 532 U. S. 782, 795 (2001) (success on
Fifth Amendment self-incrimination claim in habeas case requires show
ing that the error had “substantial and injurious effect or influence in
determining the jury’s verdict” (internal quotation marks omitted)); see
also, e. g., Banks v. Dretke, 540 U. S. 668, 691 (2004) (elements of prosecuto
rial misconduct claim under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), in
clude showing of prejudice); Donnelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U. S. 637, 643
(1974) (improper prosecutorial comment not reversible error unless re
marks “so infec[t] the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting convic
tion a denial of due process”); Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 695
(1984) (to find prejudice for purposes of ineffective-assistance claim, court
“must consider the totality of the evidence before the judge or jury”).

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
673 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
error was harmless. This would call for a careful look at
the other evidence admitted at trial, including the state
ments said to have come in contrary to the Confrontation
Clause. In sum, Felix’s claims are not outside the text of
Rule 15(c)(2).
Then there are a number of indications that Congress
would not want the rule read narrowly, the first centering
on the word “transaction.” That term not only goes to the
breadth of relation back, but also to the scope of claim preclu
sion. E. g., Kremer v. Chemical Constr. Corp., 456 U. S. 461,
482, n. 22 (1982) (“Res judicata has recently been taken to
bar claims arising from the same transaction even if brought
under different statutes . . . ”); accord, 1 Restatement (Sec
ond) of Judgments § 24(1) (1980) (“[T]he claim extinguished
includes all rights . . . with respect to all or any part of the
transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which
the action arose”). For purposes of claim preclusion in ha
beas cases, the scope of “transaction” is crucial in applying
AEDPA’s limitation on second or successive petitions: with
very narrow exceptions, federal habeas limits a prisoner to
only one petition challenging his conviction or sentence.
See 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b)(1).7 The provisions limiting second
or successive habeas petitions regard the relevant “transac
tion” for purposes of habeas claim preclusion as the trial that
yielded the conviction or sentence under attack; once a chal
lenge to that conviction or sentence has been rejected, other
challenges are barred even if they raise different claims. By
contrast, under the Court’s view of Rule 15(c) that the rele
vant “transaction” is the facts or conduct underlying each
discrete claim, a prisoner should be allowed to file a second
7 The Court asserts that my argument here “builds . . . on an apparent
assumption that claim preclusion operates in habeas cases largely as it
does in mine-run civil cases.” Ante, at 661, n. 6. In actuality, the argu
ment rests only on a fact we have previously recognized: that AEDPA’s
“restrictions on successive petitions constitute a modified res judicata
rule . . . .” Felker v. Turpin, 518 U. S. 651, 664 (1996).

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
674 MAYLE v. FELIX
Souter, J., dissenting
habeas petition so long as it is based on different underlying
facts or conduct (i. e., on what the Court considers a separate
“transaction”). The Court thus adopts, for purposes of rela
tion back in habeas cases, a definition of “transaction” differ
ent from the one Congress apparently intended for purposes
of claim preclusion in habeas cases. Judge Easterbrook ex
plained this tension in Ellzey v. United States, 324 F. 3d 521
(CA7 2003), and the Court offers no evidence that Congress
would have decreed any such apparent anomaly within the
body of habeas standards.8
There is, rather, a fair indication that Congress would have
intended otherwise, in the fact that it has already placed
limits on the right of some habeas petitioners to amend their
petitions. In Chapter 154 of Title 28, providing special pro
cedures for habeas cases brought by petitioners subject to
capital sentences in certain States, Congress specifically pro
hibited amendment of the original habeas petitions after the
filing of the answer, except on the grounds specified for sec
ond or successive petitions under 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b). See
§ 2266(b)(3)(B). Congress’s intent to limit capital petition
ers’ opportunity to amend (and thus to take advantage of
relation back) makes sense owing to capital petitioners’ in
centive for delay, but the provision it enacted also helps us
make sense of Rule 15(c) in the usual habeas case where a
prisoner has no incentive to string the process out. For
Congress has shown not only that it knows how to limit
amendment in habeas cases, but also that it specifically con
sidered the subject of limiting amendment in such cases and
chose not to limit amendment in the ordinary ones.
8 The Court is mistaken in stating that I “would read Rule 15(c)(2)’s
words, ‘conduct, transaction, or occurrence,’ into . . . 28 U. S. C. §§ 2244(b)
and 2255, ¶ 8 . . . .” Ante, at 662, n. 6. What I would do is adopt, for
purposes of reconciling Rule 15(c)(2) with AEDPA’s 1-year statute of limi
tations, a definition of “transaction” that is consistent with what other
sections of AEDPA, those governing second or successive petitions, func
tionally regard as the relevant “transaction.”

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
675 Cite as: 545 U. S. 644 (2005)
Souter, J., dissenting
The final reason to view the trial as the relevant “transac
tion” in Rule 15(c)(2) lies in the real consequences of today’s
decision, which will fall most heavily on the shoulders of indi
gent habeas petitioners who can afford no counsel without
the assistance of the court. In practical terms, the signifi
cance of the right to amend arises from the fact that in the
overwhelming majority of cases, the original petition is the
work of a pro se petitioner. See Duncan v. Walker, 533
U. S. 167, 191 (2001) (Breyer, J., dissenting) (93% of habeas
petitioners in study were pro se (citing U. S. Dept. of Justice,
Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Fed
eral Habeas Corpus Review: Challenging State Court Crimi
nal Convictions 14 (1995))); 1 Hertz & Liebman § 12.2, at 601
(“[N]early all” federal habeas petitioners commence proceed
ings either without legal assistance or with only the aid of a
fellow inmate or a volunteer attorney). Unless required by
statute, appointment of counsel is most often a matter of
discretion on the part of the court. The district judge may
well choose not to exercise that discretion unless and until
a habeas proceeding advances to the stage of discovery or
evidentiary hearing. See Habeas Corpus Rule 6(a) (requir
ing appointment of counsel for indigent petitioner “[i]f neces
sary for effective discovery”); Rule 8(c) (requiring appoint
ment of counsel “[i]f an evidentiary hearing is warranted”).
And the judge almost certainly will not appoint counsel until
after the preliminary review of the petition to see whether
it plainly warrants dismissal. See Rule 4. Where a peti
tion (even in its pro se form) has survived this review by
showing enough merit to justify appointing counsel, it makes
no sense to say that counsel (appointed because of that ap
parent merit) should be precluded from exercising profes
sional judgment when that judgment calls for adding a new
ground for relief that would relate back to the filing of the
original petition. For by hobbling counsel this way, the
Court limits the capacity of appointed counsel to provide the
professional service that a paid lawyer, hired at the outset,

545US2 Unit: $U74 [04-07-08 12:22:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN
676 MAYLE v. FELIX
Souter, J., dissenting
can give a client. The lawyer hired at the start of the pro
ceeding will be able to draft an original petition containing
all the claims revealed to his trained eye; if the same lawyer
is appointed by the court only after the petitioner has dem
onstrated some merit in an original pro se filing, he and his
prisoner client will have no right to state all claims by adding
to the original petition, unless the lawyer happens to be ap
pointed and able to get up to speed before the statute of
limitations runs out. The rule the Court adopts today may
not make much difference to prisoners with enough money
to hire their own counsel; but it will matter a great deal to
poor prisoners who need appointed counsel to see and plead
facts showing a colorable basis for relief.9
The Court of Appeals got it right, and I respectfully
dissent.
9 It is not that I see the Court’s rule as constitutionally troubling. But
this case requires us to apply text that is ambiguous, and the Court’s
resolution of that ambiguity is based on the assumption that when Con
gress authorized the appointment of counsel in habeas cases, it would have
intended the appointed lawyer to have one hand tied behind his back, as
compared with an attorney hired by a prisoner with money. That is not
in my view a sound assumption. (The Court also observes that in this
case counsel had plenty of time to file an amended petition, but that fact
cannot drive this decision, for the rule the Court adopts today will of
course apply in cases other than this one.)