Cite as: 513 U. S. 298 (1995)
Scalia, J., dissenting
tion); see also Wong Doo v. United States, 265 U. S. 239, 240- 241 (1924) (abusive petition). In Salinger the Court particularly noted: "Here the prior refusal to discharge [the prisoner] was by a court of coordinate jurisdiction and was affirmed in a considered opinion by a Circuit Court of Appeals. Had the District Court disposed of the later applications on that ground, its discretion would have been well exercised and we should sustain its action without saying more." 265 U. S., at 232. Section 2244 is no more and no less than a codification of this approach. It is one of the disheartening ironies of today's decision that the Court not merely disregards a statute, but in doing so denies district judges the very discretion that the Court itself freely entrusted to them before Congress spoke.
In 1948 Congress for the first time addressed the problem of repetitive petitions by enacting the predecessor of the current § 2244, which provided as follows:
"No circuit or district judge shall be required to entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus to inquire into the detention of a person pursuant to a judgment of a court of the United States, or of any State, if it appears that the legality of such detention has been determined by a judge or court of the United States on a prior application for a writ of habeas corpus and the petition presents no new ground not theretofore presented and determined, and the judge or court is satisfied that the ends of justice will not be served by such inquiry." 28 U. S. C. § 2244 (1964 ed.) (emphasis added).
This provision was construed in Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), and (with unimpeachable logic) was held to mean that "[c]ontrolling weight may be given to denial of a prior application for federal habeas corpus [under 28 U. S. C. § 2254] only if (1) the same ground presented in the subsequent application was determined adversely to the applicant on the prior application, (2) the prior determination was on
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