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Page Number: 68.0

36 

JONES v. HENDRIX 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

The majority’s interpretation also implicates the Suspen-
sion Clause.  Art. I, §9, cl. 2.  The majority admits that, at
a minimum, the Suspension Clause protects the right of ha-
beas corpus as it existed at the time of the founding.24  See 
ante, at 15.  The majority also seems to acknowledge that, 
in the late 18th century, an individual—even one who had 
been convicted of a crime—could invoke habeas to raise a 
“jurisdictional” error.  Ante, at 15, 24–25.  Historically, the
term “ ‘jurisdictional’ ” when used by habeas courts “meant
something  much  broader  then  than  it  means  now.”    Ko-
varsky 75; see also Siegel 524.  And, importantly, a court
lacked “jurisdiction”—and thus the writ could issue—when 
a person was incarcerated for noncriminal behavior.25 

—————— 

24 I  reject  the  majority’s  suggestion  that  the  Suspension  Clause  pro-
tects only the scope of the great writ as it existed in the founding era.
Historical habeas practice provides the floor, and not the ceiling, of Sus-
pension Clause protection.  St. Cyr, 533 U. S., at 301 (“[A]t the absolute 
minimum,  the  Suspension  Clause  protects  the  writ  ‘as  it  existed  in 
1789’ ”  (quoting  Felker  v.  Turpin,  518  U. S.  651,  664  (1996);  emphasis 
added)).  The habeas remedy has “a dynamic element which itself was 
adopted by the framers,” W. Hurst, The Process of Constitutional Con-
struction,  in  Supreme  Court  and  Supreme  Law  61  (E.  Cahn  ed.  1954)
(statement of P. Freund), such that “to truly understand the scope of the 
writ ‘as it existed in 1789’ is to understand its protean dynamism, not 
any of its specific applications,”  S. Vladeck, The New Habeas Revision-
ism, 124 Harv. L. Rev. 941, 991 (2011); see also P. Halliday, Habeas Cor-
pus: From England to Empire 160 (2010).  But resolving that debate is 
unnecessary because Jones’s claim implicates even the majority’s crab-
bed view of the Suspension Clause. 

25 See, e.g., Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 376–377 (1880) (noting that
a  court’s  “authority”  to  “try  and  imprison”  an  individual  stems  from  a 
particular statute and therefore a court has “no jurisdiction” if the law 
does not lawfully apply to the prisoner); Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 
136 (1807) (“[A]s the crime with which the prisoners stand charged has
not been committed, the court can only direct them to be discharged”); 
Matter of Corryell, 22 Cal. 178, 181 (1863) (“The Court derives its juris-
diction from the law, and its jurisdiction extends to such matters as the 
law declares to be criminal, and none other, and when it undertakes to 
imprison for an offense to which no criminality is attached, it acts beyond 
its jurisdiction”); Bushell’s Case, Vaughn. 135, 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C. P.