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6 

SHOOP v. TWYFORD 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

take a convicted felon outside the prison’s walls.”  Ante, at 
5, n. 1.  The Court says doing so “creates public safety risks
and burdens on the State that cannot be remedied after fi-
nal judgment.”  Ibid.  But what exactly are those risks?  The 
order  here  requires  transporting  respondent  to  a  medical 
center—the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
11 F. 4th, at 520.  That medical center is the “official prison
hospital,” which “has the security and other infrastructure”
to  safely  accommodate  prisoners  and  does  so  regularly.
App. to Pet. for Cert. 24a; Tr. of Oral Arg. 40, 57–58.  Re-
spondent tells us that he has personally been transported 
between the prison and the medical center 16 times without
incident.  Id., at 57. 

Other orders might well create similar kinds of risks.  A 
writ of habeas corpus might require the State to transport
a prisoner to court to testify or for trial, see §2241(c)(5), or 
an  order  appointing  a  psychiatrist  or  other  expert  to  con-
duct a psychological examination might require the State to
allow  access  to  a  dangerous  prisoner,  see  Fed.  Rule  Civ.
Proc. 35(a).  Would the Court’s logic require that all such 
orders with security risks be immediately appealable?  That 
would be a dramatic extension of the collateral order doc-
trine, which we have said should remain “ ‘narrow,’ ” Digital 
Equipment Corp., 511 U. S., at 868 (emphasis added). 

Finally,  we  have  also  said  that  some  interlocutory  ap-
peals “mak[e] unwise use of appellate courts’ time, by forc-
ing them to decide in the context of a less developed record, 
an issue very similar to one they may well decide anyway
later, on a record that will permit a better decision.” John-
son, 515 U. S., at 317.  That warning is applicable here.  The 
question whether the transportation order was proper un-
der the All Writs Act is not conceptually distinct from the
merits of respondent’s habeas claims.  In order to obtain a 
transportation order, the Court says, a prisoner must show 
that “the desired evidence would be admissible in connec-
tion  with  a  particular  claim  for  relief.”  Ante,  at  11.  Of