646
Scalia, J., dissenting
hearing on the merits of his Ford claim in the District Court. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Thomas joins, dissenting.
It is axiomatic that "the power to award the writ [of habeas corpus] by any of the courts of the United States, must be given by written law." Ex parte Bollman, 4 Cranch 75, 94 (1807) (opinion of Marshall, C. J.). And it is impossible to conceive of language that more clearly precludes respond-ent's renewed competency-to-be-executed claim than the written law before us here: a "claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application . . . that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed. " 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. II) (emphasis added). The Court today flouts the unmistakable language of the statute to avoid what it calls a "perverse" result. Ante, at 644. There is nothing "perverse" about the result that the statute commands, except that it contradicts pre-existing judge-made law, which it was precisely the purpose of the statute to change.
Respondent received a full hearing on his competency-tobe-executed claim in state court. The state court appointed experts and held a 4-day evidentiary hearing, after which it found respondent "aware that he is to be punished for the crime of murder and . . . aware that the impending punishment for that crime is death . . . ." App. 172. Respondent appealed this determination to the Supreme Court of Arizona, which accepted jurisdiction and denied relief. He sought certiorari of that denial in this Court, which also denied relief. To say that it is "perverse" to deny respondent a second round of time-consuming lower-federal-court review of his conviction and sentence—because that means forgoing lower-federal-court review of a competency-to-be-executed claim that arises only after he has already sought federal
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