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

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to 
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that 
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 21–511 
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TIM SHOOP, WARDEN, PETITIONER v. 
RAYMOND A. TWYFORD, III 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

[June 21, 2022] 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  ROBERTS  delivered  the  opinion  of  the 

Court. 

The All Writs Act authorizes federal courts to “issue all 
writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective ju-
risdictions  and  agreeable  to  the  usages  and  principles  of
law.”  28 U. S. C. §1651(a).  In this case, the District Court 
ordered the State to transport a prisoner in its custody to a
hospital for medical testing.  The prisoner argued that the
testing could reveal evidence helpful in his effort to obtain
habeas corpus relief.  The question is whether the District
Court’s order is “necessary or appropriate in aid of ” the fed-
eral  court’s  resolution  of  the  prisoner’s  habeas  case.    We 
hold that it is not, and therefore reverse. 

I 

On the evening of September 23, 1992, Raymond Twyford 
and his co-conspirator lured Richard Franks to a remote lo-
cation,  and  shot  and  killed  him.  To  hide  their  crime,  the 
pair  mutilated  Franks’s  body  and  pushed  it  into  a  pond.
But a sheriff found the body a few days later, and his inves-
tigation led to Twyford.  Twyford confessed, claiming that 
Franks had raped his girlfriend’s daughter and that he had