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6 

BROWN v. DAVENPORT 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

point: The jurisdictional inquiry was then (though of course 
not now) often “merits based.”  A. Woolhandler, Demodeling 
Habeas, 45 Stan. L. Rev. 575, 630 (1993).  That is why this
Court could say in the late 19th century that a court of con-
viction has jurisdiction only “when, in taking custody of the
accused, and in its modes of procedure to the determination 
of the question of his guilt or innocence, and in rendering 
judgment, the court keeps within the limitations prescribed
by the law.”  In re Bonner, 151 U. S. 242, 257 (1894).   Or 
why  a  roughly  contemporaneous  habeas  treatise  could 
state: “[N]o court has jurisdiction to imprison a person or
detain him in custody in violation of the Constitution.”  1 
W.  Bailey,  Law  of  Habeas  Corpus  and  Special  Remedies
§25, p. 67 (1913).  So the majority’s supposedly narrow ju-
risdictional exception in fact allowed expansive relief: From 
the  mid-1800s  on,  federal  courts  granted  habeas  writs  to 
prisoners, federal and state alike, who on the way to convic-
tion or sentence had suffered serious constitutional harms.2 
Contrary  to  the  majority,  then,  our  decision  in  Brown 
built on decades and decades of history.  No doubt, Brown 
was  significant—a  landmark  of  a  kind—because  it  “made 
explicit,” and delineated in precise style, the broad scope of 

—————— 
express  provision  of  the  Constitution[ ]  bounds  and  limits  all  jurisdic-
tion”); Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 468 (1938) (the denial of the right 
to counsel is a “jurisdictional bar to a valid conviction”). 

2 A forthcoming article makes much the same point in addressing the 
concurrence that anticipated today’s historical musings.  See supra, at 2; 
Edwards v. Vannoy, 593 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2021) (GORSUCH, J., concur-
ring) (slip op., at 2–8).  Professor Jonathan Siegel writes that the concur-
rence “relies on quotations” invoking a court’s jurisdiction “without fully 
acknowledging the meaning that they had in their original context.  [It] 
incorrectly ascribes to these quotations the meaning they might have if 
a court wrote them today.  One must, however, always remember that 
‘the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’  Historical 
statements must be understood in their historical context.”  Habeas, His-
tory, and Hermeneutics, 64 Ariz. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2022) (draft, at 4),
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3899955 (footnote omitted).