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Page Number: 58

26 

JONES v. HENDRIX 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

122  (2001)  (Manning).    And,  before  today,  this  Court  has
repeatedly  recognized  the  importance  of  the  clear-state-
ment rule with respect to any analysis of an Act of Congress
that potentially restricts access to the writ of habeas corpus 
or  its  statutory  equivalent.14   In  fact,  “where  a  provision
precluding review is claimed to bar habeas review,” we have 
“required a particularly clear statement.”  Demore v. Kim, 
538 U. S. 510, 517 (2003) (emphasis added).

The clear-statement rule is plainly implicated here.  Un-
der the state of the law at the time AEDPA was enacted, 
prisoners were entitled to bring a petition to assert a new 
claim of legal innocence, even a second or successive peti-
tion.  Supra, at 8–9.  Congress could change that state of
affairs, but, under the clear-statement rule, if it intended to 
do so, it needed to speak clearly to effectuate that result. 

At a more general level of analysis, the clear-statement 
rule also applies to these circumstances because the inter-
pretive  question  in  this  case  touches  upon  the  venerated 
writ of habeas corpus—the only writ that is expressly men-
tioned  in  the  Constitution.    Art.  I,  §9,  cl. 2;  Holland,  560 
U. S., at 649.  We have long recognized that the clear-state-
ment rule serves the core liberty interests protected by the
writ of habeas corpus.  See Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall., at 103 
(holding, more than 150 years ago, that the Court had ju-
risdiction over a particular habeas petition and relying on
the clear-statement rule to reach that conclusion, explain-
ing that, to conclude otherwise, would “greatly weaken the 
efficacy of the writ” and “deprive the citizen in many cases 
of its benefits”).  Likewise, in modern times, we have been 
especially  careful  to  reference  clear-statement  principles, 

—————— 

14 See, e.g.,  Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U. S. 723, 738 (2008); McQuiggin 
v. Perkins, 569 U. S. 383, 397 (2013); Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631, 
646 (2010); Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U. S. 930, 946 (2007); Hamdan 
v. Rumsfeld, 548 U. S. 557, 575 (2006); Demore v. Kim, 538 U. S. 510, 517 
(2003); Castro v. United States, 540 U. S. 375, 381 (2003); INS v. St. Cyr, 
533 U. S. 289, 298 (2001); Ex parte Yerger, 8 Wall. 85, 102 (1869).