344
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
§ 2254(d) ("The district courts shall not enjoin . . .")—is "first and foremost a vehicle to limit drastically federal district court jurisdiction to interfere with so important a local concern as the collection of taxes" (internal quotation marks omitted)). But even if it is not jurisdictional, it shares the most salient characteristic of jurisdictional statutes: Its commands are addressed to courts rather than to individuals. Section 2254(d) does not address criminal defendants, or even state prosecutors; it prescribes or proscribes no private conduct. Instead, it is addressed directly to federal courts, providing, "[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted . . . unless . . . ." (Emphasis added.)
Whether the approach is framed in terms of "retroactive effect," as the Landgraf majority put it, 511 U. S., at 280, or in terms of "the relevant activity that the rule regulates," as Justice Scalia's concurrence put it, see id., at 291 (opinion concurring in judgment), our longstanding practice of applying procedural, prospective, and jurisdiction-ousting statutes to pending cases must play an important part in the decision. These principles all favor application of § 2254(d) to pending cases.
It is a procedural statute, regulating prospective relief, and addressed directly to federal courts and removing their power to give such relief in specified circumstances. Our cases therefore strongly suggest that, absent congressional direction otherwise, we should apply § 2254(d) to pending cases. This is not because of any peculiar characteristic intrinsic to the writ of habeas corpus, but rather because modifications to federal courts' authority to issue the writ are necessarily of that stripe—procedural, prospective, and addressed to courts. It is therefore not surprising that the parties have not pointed us to a single case where we have found a modification in the scope of habeas corpus relief inapplicable to pending cases. To the contrary, respondent and
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