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JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and
JUSTICE ALITO join, dissenting.
On December 30, 2005, Congress enacted the Detainee
Treatment Act (DTA). It unambiguously provides that, as
of that date, “no court, justice, or judge” shall have jurisdiction
to consider the habeas application of a Guantanamo
Bay detainee. Notwithstanding this plain directive,
the Court today concludes that, on what it calls the
statute’s most natural reading, every “court, justice, or
judge” before whom such a habeas application was pending
on December 30 has jurisdiction to hear, consider, and
render judgment on it. This conclusion is patently erroneous.
And even if it were not, the jurisdiction supposedly
retained should, in an exercise of sound equitable discretion,
not be exercised.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05pdf/05-184.pdf