Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-511_o75p.pdf
Page Number: 21

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

course, at this early stage, a district court’s assessment of 
that  issue  is  only  preliminary  because  it  cannot  know  for
certain what evidence will be revealed.  After the evidence 
is developed, the court will need to make a final determina-
tion of whether it is in fact admissible.  Requiring appellate 
courts to review both the district court’s preliminary assess-
ment of admissibility on interlocutory appeal and its ulti-
mate assessment of the same question after final judgment
is unnecessarily duplicative and inefficient. 

All of these concerns suggest that transportation orders 
like the one here do not satisfy the requirements for inter-
locutory appeal under the collateral order doctrine. 

B 
The  Court  points  out  in  response that  “[e]very  Court  of
Appeals to consider the question” has found a transporta-
tion order to be immediately appealable.   Ante, at 5, n. 1. 
True.  But few Courts of Appeals have been asked to “con-
sider the question.”  The Court cites, over the last five dec-
ades, only four cases (besides this one) that have concluded 
that  transportation  orders  are  immediately  appealable. 
Ibid.  (citing  Jones  v.  Lilly,  37  F. 3d  964,  965–966  (CA3 
1994);  Jackson  v.  Vasquez,  1  F. 3d  885,  887–888  (CA9 
1993); Ballard v. Spradley, 557 F. 2d 476, 479 (CA5 1977); 
Barnes v. Black, 544 F. 3d 807, 810–811 (CA7 2008)).  An 
average of one decision every decade can hardly be thought 
to establish a lower court consensus.  A contrary determi-
nation here would not disturb settled practice. 

The Court also asserts that, on one occasion, we have pre-
viously reviewed a transportation order.  See Pennsylvania 
Bureau of Correction v. United States Marshals Service, 474 
U. S. 34 (1985).  But the precedential value of that decision
is limited because the opinion did not discuss the Court of 
Appeals’ jurisdiction to hear an interlocutory appeal from
the order.  See Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 511 
(2006).  It does not set forth a jurisdictional ruling at all.