Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 63

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

31 

JACKSON, J., dissenting 

Court has previously applied the clear-statement rule and
analyzed the meaning of particular AEDPA provisions, the 
feelings  of  the  Framers  were  of  no  moment.  Instead,  we 
properly  examined  the  law  leading  up  to  AEDPA’s  enact-
ment, not founding-era sources.  See, e.g., Panetti, 551 U. S., 
at  944;  Magwood  v.  Patterson,  561  U. S.  320,  337  (2010) 
(plurality opinion).

Even if the majority was right with respect to its assump-
tion that founding-era practices bear on whether the clear-
statement rule applies here, historical practice plainly un-
dermines its assertion that legal innocence claims are of re-
cent vintage.  Supreme Court Justices riding circuit in the 
early 19th century repeatedly considered the merits of ha-
beas petitions filed by individuals who argued they were be-
ing wrongfully incarcerated because the laws that had been 
invoked  to  justify  their  confinement,  properly  construed, 
did not reach their conduct.19  Moreover, and importantly, 

—————— 

19 Ex parte D’Olivera, 7 F. Cas. 853, 854 (No. 3,967) (CC Mass. 1813)
(Story, J.) (construing a 1790 statute criminalizing desertion from a mer-
chant ship by “seamen engaged in the merchants’ service of the United 
States” as not covering certain “foreign seamen in foreign vessels” and 
granting habeas relief to such persons); United States v. Bainbridge, 24 
F. Cas. 946, 951–952 (No. 14,497) (CC Mass. 1816) (Story, J.) (consider-
ing  on  the  merits,  but  ultimately  rejecting,  a habeas  petitioner’s  argu-
ment  that  an  enlistment  law  did  not  apply  to  minors  enlisted  without 
parental  consent);  Ex parte  Randolph,  20  F.  Cas.  242,  254–257  (No. 
11,558) (CC Va. 1833) (Marshall, C. J.) (granting habeas relief to an in-
dividual civilly imprisoned because the statute at issue, properly inter-
preted,  did  not  apply  to  the  petitioner);  see  also,  e.g.,  Grant  v.  United 
States, 58 F. 694, 695–697 (CA9 1893) (granting writ of error to individ-
uals who had been convicted following a trial, on the ground that the law
at issue, “fairly interpreted,” did not reach the petitioners’ conduct be-
cause “the case does not come within the letter of the statute,” and citing
cases  reaching  the  same  conclusion);  In  re  Wahll,  42  F.  822,  825–826 
(Minn. 1890) (considering, but rejecting on the merits, a convicted pris-
oner’s claim that his acts did not amount to a violation of a federal law 
criminalizing the mailing of obscene letters).

The majority has plainly expended a considerable amount of effort to