Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 24.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

until 1974, in Davis, that the Court broke with that tradi-
tion,  holding  for  the  first  time  that  a  substantive  error  of
statutory law could be a cognizable ground for a collateral 
attack  on  a  federal  court’s  criminal  judgment.    See  417 
U. S., at 342–347. 

The Suspension Clause does not constitutionalize that in-
novation of nearly two centuries later.  Nor, a fortiori, does 
it  require  the  extension  of  that  innovation  to  a  second  or 
successive collateral attack. 

Jones’ remaining constitutional arguments are no more 
persuasive.  He argues that denying him a new opportunity
for collateral review of his Rehaif claim threatens separation-
of-powers  principles—specifically,  Congress’  exclusive 
power  to  define  crimes    Cf.  United  States  v.  Hudson,  7 
Cranch 32, 34 (1812).  But the authority to determine the
facts and the law in an individual case, and to render a fi-
nal,  binding  judgment  based  on  those  determinations, 
stands at the core of the judicial power.  See Plaut v. Spend-
thrift Farm, Inc., 514 U. S. 211, 218–219 (1995); Watkins, 3 
Pet., at 202–203.  A court does not usurp legislative power 
simply by misinterpreting the law in a given case.  See id., 
at 206 (“If its judgment was erroneous, a point which this 
court does not determine, still it is a judgment”). 

—————— 
pretrial orders of commitment on the ground that there was “not suffi-
cient evidence . . . to justify [their] commitment on the charge of treason.” 
Id., at 135.  Matter of Corryell, 22 Cal. 178 (1863), granted relief from a 
pretrial order of commitment after holding that the acts of which the pe-
titioner stood accused did not constitute the charged crime.  Id., at 180, 
183.  (Incidentally, this use of habeas was not free from controversy.  See, 
e.g.,  In re  Hacker,  73  F.  464,  465–469  (SD  Cal.  1896);  “In re  Kearney,” 
The Writ of Habeas Corpus—Its Uses and Abuses, 5 Pac. Coast L. J. 549, 
565–570 (1880).)  Finally, In re Wahll, 42 F. 822 (D. Minn. 1890), consid-
ered but rejected a similar argument for ordering pretrial release.  Id., 
at 824–826.  In sum, like Jones’ pre-founding English cases, the dissent’s 
19th-century American cases include no example in which a prisoner un-
der sentence of a court of general criminal jurisdiction was permitted to 
relitigate the elements of his offense on habeas corpus.