Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-857_4357.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

3 

Syllabus 

a §2255 motion.  That argument would nullify AEDPA’s limits on col-
lateral relief. 

Jones suggests that denying him the chance to raise his Rehaif claim 
in a §2241 petition would violate the Suspension Clause, U. S. Const., 
Art. I, §9, cl. 2.  This argument fails because it would extend the writ 
of  habeas  corpus  far  beyond  its  scope  when  the  Constitution  was 
drafted and ratified.  Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissi-
giam, 591 U. S. ___, ___.  When the Suspension Clause was adopted, 
Jones’ Rehaif claim would not have been cognizable in habeas at all. 
At the founding, a sentence after conviction “by a court of competent 
jurisdiction” was “ ‘in itself sufficient cause’ ” for a prisoner’s continued 
detention.  Brown v. Davenport, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (quoting Ex parte 
Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202).  Of particular relevance here, a habeas court
had no power to “look beyond the judgment” to “re-examine the charges
on which it was rendered” for substantive errors of law—even “if . . . 
the  [sentencing]  court  ha[d]  misconstrued  the  law,  and  ha[d]  pro-
nounced an offence to be punishable criminally, which [was] not so.” 
Id., at 202, 209.  While Jones argues that pre-founding practice was 
otherwise, he fails to identify a single clear case of habeas being used 
to relitigate a conviction after trial by a court of general criminal juris-
diction. 

The principles of Ex parte Watkins guided this Court’s understand-
ing of the habeas writ throughout the 19th century and well into the 
20th.  See Brown, 596 U. S., at ___, n. 1 (collecting cases).  It was not 
until 1974, in Davis v. United States, 417 U. S. 333, that the Court held 
for the first time that a substantive error of statutory law could be a
cognizable ground for a collateral attack on a federal court’s criminal 
judgment.  See id., at 342–347.  The Suspension Clause neither consti-
tutionalizes that innovation nor requires its extension to a second or 
successive collateral attack. 

Jones’ remaining constitutional arguments are no more persuasive. 
He argues that denying him a new opportunity for collateral review of 
his Rehaif claim threatens Congress’s exclusive power to define crimes,
but a court does not usurp legislative power simply by misinterpreting
the law in a given case.  Next, Jones points to Fiore v. White, 531 U. S. 
225 (per curiam), which applied the rule that due process requires that
the  prosecution  prove  every  element  of  a  crime  beyond a  reasonable 
doubt.  But due process does not guarantee a direct appeal, McKane v. 
Durston,  153  U. S.  684,  687,  let  alone  the  opportunity  to  have  legal 
issues  redetermined  in  successive  collateral  attacks.    Finally,  the
Eighth Amendment’s constraint on the kinds of punishments govern-
ments  may  inflict  creates  no  independent  entitlement  to  a  second 
round of postconviction review.  Pp. 12–20.