Respondent Zackey Rahimi was indicted under 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(8), a federal statute that prohibits individuals subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm. A prosecution under Section 922(g)(8) may proceed only if the restraining order meets certain statutory criteria. In particular, the order must either contain a finding that the defendant “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” of his intimate partner or his or his partner’s child, §922(g)(8)(C)(i), or “by its terms explicitly prohibit[ ] the use,” attempted use, or threatened use of “physical force” against those individuals, §922(g)(8)(C)(ii). Rahimi concedes here that the restraining order against him satisfies the statutory criteria, but argues that on its face Section 922(g)(8) violates the Second Amendment. The District Court denied Rahimi’s motion to dismiss the indictment on Second Amendment grounds. While Rahimi’s case was on appeal, the Supreme Court decided New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1 (2022). In light of Bruen, the Fifth Circuit reversed, concluding that the Government had not shown that Section 922(g)(8) “fits within our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” 61 F. 4th 443, 460 (CA5 2023).

Held: When an individual has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another, that individual may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. Pp. 5–17.

  (a) Since the Founding, the Nation’s firearm laws have included regulations to stop individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms. As applied to the facts here, Section 922(g)(8) fits within this tradition.

  The right to keep and bear arms is among the “fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.” McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 778. That right, however, “is not unlimited,” District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 626. The reach of the Second Amendment is not limited only to those arms that were in existence at the Founding. Heller, 554 U. S., at 582. Rather, it “extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not [yet] in existence.” Ibid. By that same logic, the Second Amendment permits more than just regulations identical to those existing in 1791.

  Under our precedent, the appropriate analysis involves considering whether the challenged regulation is consistent with the principles that underpin the Nation’s regulatory tradition. Bruen, 597 U. S., at 26–31. When firearm regulation is challenged under the Second Amendment, the Government must show that the restriction “is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Bruen, 597 U. S., at 24. A court must ascertain whether the new law is “relevantly similar” to laws that our tradition is understood to permit, “apply[ing] faithfully the balance struck by the founding generation to modern circumstances.” Id., at 29, and n. 7. Why and how the regulation burdens the right are central to this inquiry. As Bruen explained, a challenged regulation that does not precisely match its historical precursors “still may be analogous enough to pass constitutional muster.” Id., at 30. Pp. 5–8.

  (b) Section 922(g)(8) survives Rahimi’s challenge. Pp. 8–17.

   (1) Rahimi’s facial challenge to Section 922(g)(8) requires him to “establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid.” United States v. Salerno, 481 U. S. 739, 745. Here, Section 922(g)(8) is constitutional as applied to the facts of Rahimi’s own case. Rahimi has been found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of others, see §922(g)(8)(C)(i), and the Government offers ample evidence that the Second Amendment permits such individuals to be disarmed. P. 8.

   (2) The Court reviewed the history of American gun laws extensively in Heller and Bruen. At common law people were barred from misusing weapons to harm or menace others. Such conduct was often addressed through ordinary criminal laws and civil actions, such as prohibitions on fighting or private suits against individuals who threatened others. By the 1700s and early 1800s, though, two distinct legal regimes had developed that specifically addressed firearms violence: the surety laws and the “going armed” laws. Surety laws were a form of “preventive justice,” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 251 (10th ed. 1787), which authorized magistrates to require individuals suspected of future misbehavior to post a bond. If an individual failed to post a bond, he would be jailed. If the individual did post a bond and then broke the peace, the bond would be forfeit. Surety laws could be invoked to prevent all forms of violence, including spousal abuse, and also targeted the misuse of firearms. These laws often offered the accused significant procedural protections.

  The “going armed” laws—a particular subset of the ancient common law prohibition on affrays, or fighting in public—provided a mechanism for punishing those who had menaced others with firearms. Under these laws, individuals were prohibited from “riding or going armed, with dangerous or unusual weapons, [to] terrify[ ] the good people of the land.” 4 Blackstone 149. Those who did so faced forfeiture of their arms and imprisonment. Prohibitions on going armed were incorporated into American jurisprudence through the common law, and some States expressly codified them. Pp. 9–13.

   (3) Together, the surety and going armed laws confirm what common sense suggests: When an individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to another, the threatening individual may be disarmed. Section 922(g)(8) is not identical to these founding-era regimes, but it does not need to be. Like the surety and going armed laws, Section 922(g)(8)(C)(i) applies to individuals found by a court to threaten the physical safety of another. This prohibition is “relevantly similar” to those founding era regimes in both why and how it burdens the Second Amendment right. Id., at 29. Section 922(g)(8) restricts gun use to check demonstrated threats of physical violence, just as the surety and going armed laws do. Unlike the regulation struck down in Bruen, Section 922(g)(8) does not broadly restrict arms use by the public generally.

  The burden that Section 922(g)(8) imposes on the right to bear arms also fits within the Nation’s regulatory tradition. While the Court does not suggest that the Second Amendment prohibits the enactment of laws banning the possession of guns by categories of persons thought by a legislature to present a special danger of misuse, see Heller, 554 U. S., at 626, Section 922(g)(8) applies only once a court has found that the defendant “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” of another, §922(g)(8)(C)(i), which notably matches the similar judicial determinations required in the surety and going armed laws. Moreover, like surety bonds of limited duration, Section 922(g)(8) only prohibits firearm possession so long as the defendant “is” subject to a restraining order. Finally, the penalty—another relevant aspect of the burden—also fits within the regulatory tradition. The going armed laws provided for imprisonment, and if imprisonment was permissible to respond to the use of guns to threaten the physical safety of others, then the lesser restriction of temporary disarmament that Section 922(g)(8) imposes is also permissible.

  The Court’s decisions in Heller and Bruen do not help Rahimi. While Section 922(g)(8) bars individuals subject to restraining orders from possessing guns in the home, Heller never established a categorical rule that the Constitution prohibits regulations that forbid firearm possession in the home. Indeed, Heller stated that many such prohibitions, like those on the possession of firearms by “felons and the mentally ill,” are “presumptively lawful.” Heller, 554 U. S., at 626, 627, n. 26. And the Court’s conclusion in Bruen that regulations like the surety laws are not a proper historical analogue for a broad gun licensing regime does not mean that they cannot be an appropriate analogue for a narrow one. Pp. 13–15.

   (4) The Fifth Circuit erred in reading Bruen to require a “historical twin” rather than a “historical analogue.” 597 U. S., at 30. The panel also misapplied the Court’s precedents when evaluating Rahimi’s facial challenge. Rather than consider the circumstances in which Section 922(g)(8) was most likely to be constitutional, the panel instead focused on hypothetical scenarios where the provision might raise constitutional concerns. P. 16.

   (5) Finally, the Court rejects the Government’s contention that Rahimi may be disarmed simply because he is not “responsible.” The Court used this term in Heller and Bruen to describe the class of citizens who undoubtedly enjoy the Second Amendment right. Those decisions, however, did not define the term and said nothing about the status of citizens who were not “responsible.” P. 17.

61 F. 4th 443, reversed and remanded.

 Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion for the Court, in which Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Sotomayor, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kagan, J., joined. Gorsuch, J., Kavanaugh, J., Barrett, J., and Jackson, J., filed concurring opinions. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

In two immigration proceedings, noncitizens Fernando Cordero-Garcia and Jean Francois Pugin were determined removable from the United States on the ground that they had convictions for aggravated felonies—namely, offenses “relating to obstruction of justice.” See 8 U. S. C. §§1101(a)(43)(S), 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). On appeal, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Cordero-Garcia’s state conviction for dissuading a witness from reporting a crime did not constitute an offense “relating to obstruction of justice” because the state offense did not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending. By contrast, the Fourth Circuit concluded that Pugin’s state conviction for accessory after the fact constituted an offense “relating to obstruction of justice” even if the state offense did not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending.

Held: An offense may “relat[e] to obstruction of justice” under §1101(a)(43)(S) even if the offense does not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending. Federal law provides that noncitizens convicted of a federal or state crime constituting an “aggravated felony” are removable from the United States. §1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). Congress expanded the definition of “aggravated felony” in 1996 to include offenses “relating to obstruction of justice.” §1101(a)(43)(S). Dictionary definitions, federal laws, state laws, and the Model Penal Code show that federal or state obstruction offenses “relat[e] to obstruction of justice” under §1101(a)(43)(S) even if the offense does not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending. This extensive body of authority reflects common sense. Individuals can obstruct the process of justice even when an investigation or proceeding is not pending. Indeed, obstruction of justice is often “most effective” when it prevents “an investigation or proceeding from commencing in the first place.” Brief for Attorney General 15. The Court declines to adopt an interpretation of the statute that would exclude many common obstruction offenses from the definition of aggravated felony under §1101(a)(43)(S). Finally, the phrase “relating to” resolves any doubt about the scope of §1101(a)(43)(S), because it ensures that the statute covers offenses having a connection with obstruction of justice—which surely covers common obstruction offenses that can occur when an investigation or proceeding is not pending.

  Pugin’s and Cordero-Garcia’s contrary arguments lack merit. First, even if a specific prohibition in 18 U. S. C. §1503(a) requires that an investigation or proceeding be pending, Congress defined offenses under §1101(a)(43)(S) more broadly. Second, the historical record does not support the claim that obstruction of justice requires that an investigation or proceeding be pending. Third, reading §1101(a)(43)(S) to cover offenses that do not require a pending investigation or proceeding may create some redundancy, but the better overall reading of a statute sometimes contains some redundancy. Fourth, resort to the rule of lenity has no place here because the traditional tools of statutory interpretation show that an offense “relating to obstruction of justice” does not require that an investigation or proceeding be pending. Pp. 3–10.

No. 22–23, 19 F. 4th 437, affirmed; No. 22–331, 44 F. 4th 1181, reversed and remanded.

 Kavanaugh, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Alito, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Jackson, J., filed a concurring opinion. Sotomayor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Gorsuch, J., joined, and in which Kagan, J., joined as to all but Part III.

Notes
¹ Together with No. 22–331, Garland, Attorney General v. Cordero-Garcia, aka Cordero, on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Respondent Vitaly Smagin won a multimillion dollar arbitration award in 2014 against petitioner Ashot Yegiazaryan stemming from the misappropriation of investment funds in a joint real estate venture in Moscow. Because Yegiazaryan has lived in California since 2010, Smagin, who lives in Russia, filed suit to confirm and enforce the award in the Central District of California pursuant to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The District Court initially froze Yegiazaryan’s California assets before finally entering judgment against him. The District Court also entered several postjudgment orders barring Yegiazaryan and those acting at his direction from preventing collection on the judgment. While the action was ongoing, Yegiazaryan himself was awarded a multimillion dollar arbitration award in an unrelated matter and sought to avoid the District Court’s asset freeze by concealing the funds, which were ultimately transferred to a bank account with petitioner CMB Monaco.

  In 2020, Smagin filed this civil suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which provides a private right of action to “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of” RICO’s substantive provisions. 18 U. S. C. §1964(c). As relevant, Smagin alleges Yegiazaryan and others worked together to frustrate Smagin’s collection on the California judgment through a pattern of wire fraud and other RICO predicate racketeering acts, including witness tampering and obstruction of justice. The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that Smagin had failed to plead a “domestic injury” as required by RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U. S. 325, 346. Smagin’s Russian residency weighed heavily in the District Court’s decision. The Ninth Circuit reversed. Rejecting the District Court’s rigid, residency-based approach to the domestic-injury inquiry, the Ninth Circuit instead applied a context-specific approach and concluded that Smagin had pleaded a domestic injury because he had alleged that his efforts to execute on a California judgment in California against a California resident were foiled by a pattern of racketeering activity that largely occurred in California and was designed to subvert enforcement of the judgment there.

Held: A plaintiff alleges a domestic injury for purposes of §1964(c) when the circumstances surrounding the injury indicate it arose in the United States. Pp. 5–14.

 (a) The “domestic-injury” requirement for private civil RICO suits stems from RJR Nabisco, a case in which the Court was asked whether RICO applies extraterritorially. To answer the question, the Court applied the presumption against extraterritoriality, a canon of construction that provides “[a]bsent clearly expressed congressional intent to the contrary, federal laws will be construed to have only domestic application.” 579 U. S., at 335. Guided by concerns of international comity and the reasonable discernment of congressional intent, the Court distilled the presumption against extraterritoriality into two steps. The first asks “whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” Id., at 337. If the answer is “yes,” the presumption is rebutted, and the test ends. If the answer is “no,” the inquiry proceeds and step two asks whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute, which is assessed “by looking to the statute’s ‘focus.’ ” Ibid. Applying this framework, the Court assessed the extraterritoriality of RICO’s private right of action, §1964(c), and determined that it does not overcome the presumption at step one. Proceeding to step two, the Court held that “[a] private RICO plaintiff . . . must allege and prove a domestic injury to its business or property.” Id., at 346. Because the RJR Nabisco plaintiffs were not seeking redress for domestic injuries, the Court did not have occasion to explain what constitutes a “domestic injury.” Pp. 5–7.

 (b) The parties advance competing approaches to the domestic-injury inquiry. Petitioners urge a bright-line rule that locates a plaintiff’s injury at the plaintiff’s residence. They argue that because a private RICO action remedies only economic injuries and a plaintiff necessarily suffers that injury at its residence where the economic injury is felt, any cognizable §1964(c) injury is necessarily suffered at the plaintiff’s residence. Alternatively, petitioners argue that at least when intangible property is concerned, common-law principles locate the intangible property at the plaintiff’s residence, such that the injury is also located there. Smagin defends a contextual approach that considers all case-specific facts bearing on where the injury arises. Pp. 7–8.

 (c) The Court agrees with Smagin and the Ninth Circuit that the domestic-injury inquiry is context specific and turns largely on the facts alleged in the complaint. Specifically, courts should look to the circumstances surrounding the alleged injury to assess whether it arose in the United States. Here, that means looking to the nature of the alleged injury, the racketeering activity that directly caused it, and the injurious aims and effects of that activity.

 The context-specific approach is most consistent with RJR Nabisco. The Court’s statements in RJR Nabisco that the domestic-injury requirement “does not mean that foreign plaintiffs may not sue under RICO,” 579 U. S., at 353, n. 12, and that “application of [the] rule in any given case will not always be self-evident,” point toward a case-specific inquiry that considers the particular facts surrounding the alleged injury, id., at 354. That approach also better reflects the requirement’s origin in step two, which assesses whether there is a domestic application of a statute by looking to the statute’s focus. RJR Nabisco implied that §1964(c)’s focus is injuries in “business or property by reason of a violation of” RICO’s substantive provisions. So understood, §1964(c)’s focus is not on the isolated injury but on the injury as a product of racketeering activity. This requires courts to look to the circumstances surrounding the injury to see if those circumstances sufficiently ground the injury in the United States. Pp. 8–10.

 (d) The circumstances surrounding Smagin’s injury make clear that the injury arose in the United States. Smagin’s alleged injury is his inability to collect his judgment. Much of the alleged racketeering activity that caused that injury occurred in the United States. And while some of Yegiazaryan’s scheme to avoid collection occurred abroad, the scheme was directed toward frustrating the California judgment. Further, the injurious effects of the racketeering activity largely manifested in California. Smagin obtained a judgment in California where Yegiazaryan lives, and the rights provided by that judgment exist only in California. The alleged RICO scheme thwarted those rights, thereby undercutting the orders of the California District Court and Smagin’s efforts to collect on Yegiazaryan’s assets in California. Under a contextual approach, Smagin’s allegations suffice to state a domestic injury. Pp. 10–11.

 (e) Petitioners argue that a contextual approach is inconsistent with certain common-law principles governing “the situs” of injuries to intangible property. Specifically, petitioners point to the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws—under which fraud is typically deemed felt at the plaintiff’s residence—and to the principle of mobilia sequuntur personam—which generally locates intangible property at the domicile of its owner—and argue that both principles locate Smagin’s alleged injury at his residence. Petitioners fail both to explain the relevance of these principles and to show that they were principles settled at common law at the time of RICO’s enactment. The core problem with petitioners’ reliance on legal fictions concerning the situs of injuries in other areas of the law is that the justifications of that approach do not necessarily translate to the presumption against extraterritoriality, with its distinctive concerns for comity and discerning congressional meaning. Indeed, petitioners’ approach generates results counter to comity and far afield from any reasonable interpretation of what qualifies as a domestic application of §1964(c). Consider two U. S. businesses targeted by racketeering activity, one owned by a U. S. resident and one owned by someone living abroad. There is no evidence that Congress intended that only the former business owner can bring a §1964(c) suit, especially since doing so runs the risk of generating international discord. Finally, petitioners argue that a contextual approach is unworkable because it does not provide a bright-line rule. Such concerns about a fact-intensive test cannot displace congressional policy choices, where a more nuanced test is true to the statute’s meaning. Pp. 11–14.

37 F. 4th 562, affirmed and remanded.

  Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kagan, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, and in which Gorsuch, J., joined as to Part I.

Notes
¹ Together with No. 22–383, CMB Monaco, fka Compagnie Monegasque de Banque v. Smagin et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

An 1868 peace treaty between the United States and the Navajo Tribe established the Navajo Reservation that today spans some 17 million acres, almost entirely in the Colorado River Basin of the western United States. The Federal Government’s reservation of land for an Indian tribe implicitly reserves the right to use needed water from various sources—such as groundwater, rivers, streams, lakes, and springs—that arise on, border, cross, underlie, or are encompassed within the reservation. See Winters v. United States, 207 U. S. 564, 576–577. While the Tribe has the right to use needed water from the reservation’s numerous water sources, the Navajos face the same water scarcity problem that many in the western United States face. In the Navajos’ view, the Federal Government’s efforts to assist the Navajos with their water needs did not fully satisfy the trust obligations of the United States under the 1868 treaty. The Navajos filed suit seeking to compel the United States to take affirmative steps to secure needed water for the Tribe—including by assessing the Tribe’s water needs, developing a plan to secure the needed water, and potentially building pipelines, pumps, wells, or other water infrastructure. The States of Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado intervened against the Tribe to protect those States’ interests in water from the Colorado River. The U. S. District Court for the District of Arizona dismissed the Navajo Tribe’s complaint, but the Ninth Circuit reversed, holding in relevant part that the United States has a duty under the 1868 treaty to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Navajos.

Held: The 1868 treaty establishing the Navajo Reservation reserved necessary water to accomplish the purpose of the Navajo Reservation but did not require the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe. Pp. 6–13.

  (a) The Tribe asserts a breach-of-trust claim based on its view that the 1868 treaty imposed a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Navajos. To maintain such a claim here, the Tribe must establish, among other things, that the text of a treaty, statute, or regulation imposed certain duties on the United States. See United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 564 U. S. 162, 173–174, 177–178. The Federal Government owes judicially enforceable duties to a tribe “only to the extent it expressly accepts those responsibilities.” Id., at 177. Whether the Government has expressly accepted such obligations “must train on specific rights-creating or duty-imposing” language in a treaty, statute, or regulation. United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U. S. 488, 506.

  Here, while the 1868 treaty “set apart” a reservation for the “use and occupation of the Navajo tribe,” 15 Stat. 668, it contains no language imposing a duty on the United States to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe. See Navajo Nation, 537 U. S., at 506. Notably, the 1868 treaty did impose a number of specific duties on the United States, but the treaty said nothing about any affirmative duty for the United States to secure water. As this Court has stated, “Indian treaties cannot be rewritten or expanded beyond their clear terms.” Choctaw Nation v. United States, 318 U. S. 423, 432.

  To be sure, this Court’s precedents have stated that the United States maintains a general trust relationship with Indian tribes, including the Navajos. Jicarilla, 564 U. S., at 176. But unless Congress has created a conventional trust relationship with a tribe as to a particular trust asset, this Court will not “apply common-law trust principles” to infer duties not found in the text of a treaty, statute, or regulation. Id., at 178. Here, nothing in the 1868 treaty establishes a conventional trust relationship with respect to water. And it is unsurprising that a treaty enacted in 1868 did not provide for all of the Navajos’ current water needs 155 years later. Under the Constitution, Congress and the President have the responsibility to update federal law as they see fit in light of the competing contemporary needs for water.

  (b) Other arguments offered by the Navajo Tribe to support its claims under the 1868 treaty are unpersuasive. First, that the 1868 treaty established the Navajo Reservation as a “permanent home” does not mean that the United States agreed to take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe. Second, the treaty’s express requirement that the United States supply seeds and agricultural implements for a 3-year period to the Tribe does not, as the Tribe contends, mean that the United States has an additional duty to take affirmative steps to secure water, but rather demonstrates that the United States and the Navajos knew how to impose specific affirmative duties on the United States under the treaty. Third, the Tribe asserts that the United States’s purported control over the reserved water rights supports the view that the United States owes trust duties to the Navajos. But the “Federal Government’s liability” on a breach-of-trust claim “cannot be premised on control alone.” United States v. Navajo Nation, 556 U. S. 287, 301. Finally, the text of the treaty and records of treaty negotiations do not support the claim that in 1868 the Navajos would have understood the treaty to mean that the United States must take affirmative steps to secure water for the Tribe.

26 F. 4th 794, reversed.

 Kavanaugh, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Alito, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a concurring opinion. Gorsuch, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, JJ., joined.

Notes
¹ Together with No. 22–51, Department of the Interior et al. v. Navajo Nation et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

The question in these cases is whether the authority of Administrative Patent Judges (APJs) to issue decisions on behalf of the Executive Branch is consistent with the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. APJs conduct adversarial proceedings for challenging the validity of an existing patent before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). During such proceedings, the PTAB sits in panels of at least three of its members, who are predominantly APJs. 35 U. S. C. §§6(a), (c). The Secretary of Commerce appoints all members of the PTAB—including 200-plus APJs—except for the Director, who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. §§3(b)(1), (b)(2)(A), 6(a). After Smith & Nephew, Inc., and ArthroCare Corp. (collectively, Smith & Nephew) petitioned for inter partes review of a patent secured by Arthrex, Inc., three APJs concluded that the patent was invalid. On appeal to the Federal Circuit, Arthrex claimed that the structure of the PTAB violated the Appointments Clause, which specifies how the President may appoint officers to assist in carrying out his responsibilities. Art. II, §2, cl. 2. Arthrex argued that the APJs were principal officers who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, and that their appointment by the Secretary of Commerce was therefore unconstitutional. The Federal Circuit held that the APJs were principal officers whose appointments were unconstitutional because neither the Secretary nor Director can review their decisions or remove them at will. To remedy this constitutional violation, the Federal Circuit invalidated the APJs’ tenure protections, making them removable at will by the Secretary.

Held: The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded.

941 F. 3d 1320, vacated and remanded.

  The Chief Justice delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, concluding that the unreviewable authority wielded by APJs during inter partes review is incompatible with their appointment by the Secretary of Commerce to an inferior office. Pp. 6–19.

  (a) The Appointments Clause provides that only the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, can appoint principal officers. With respect to inferior officers, the Clause permits Congress to vest appointment power “in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” Pp. 6–8.

  (b) In Edmond v. United States, 520 U. S. 651, this Court explained that an inferior officer must be “directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Id., at 663. Applying that test to Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals judges appointed by the Secretary of Transportation, the Court held that the judges were inferior officers because they were effectively supervised by a combination of Presidentially nominated and Senate confirmed officers in the Executive Branch. Id., at 664–665. What the Court in Edmond found “significant” was that those judges had “no power to render a final decision on behalf of the United States unless permitted to do so by other Executive officers.” Id., at 665.

  Such review by a superior executive officer is absent here. While the Director has tools of administrative oversight, neither he nor any other superior executive officer can directly review decisions by APJs. Only the PTAB itself “may grant rehearings.” §6(c). This restriction on review relieves the Director of responsibility for the final decisions rendered by APJs under his charge. Their decision—the final word within the Executive Branch—compels the Director to “issue and publish a certificate” canceling or confirming patent claims he had previously allowed. §318(b).

  The Government and Smith & Nephew contend that the Director has various ways to indirectly influence the course of inter partes review. The Director, for example, could designate APJs predisposed to decide a case in his preferred manner. But such machinations blur the lines of accountability demanded by the Appointments Clause and leave the parties with neither an impartial decision by a panel of experts nor a transparent decision for which a politically accountable officer must take responsibility.

  Even if the Director can refuse to designate APJs on future PTAB panels, he has no means of countermanding the final decision already on the books. Nor can the Secretary meaningfully control APJs through the threat of removal from federal service entirely because she can fire them only “for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service.” 5 U. S. C. §7513(a); see Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. ___, ___. And the possibility of an appeal to the Federal Circuit does not provide the necessary supervision. APJs exercise executive power, and the President must be ultimately responsible for their actions. See Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 305, n. 4.

  Given the insulation of PTAB decisions from any executive review, the President can neither oversee the PTAB himself nor “attribute the Board’s failings to those whom he can oversee.” Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 496. APJs accordingly exercise power that conflicts with the design of the Appointments Clause “to preserve political accountability.” Edmond, 520 U. S., at 663. Pp. 8–14.

  (c) History reinforces the conclusion that the unreviewable executive power exercised by APJs is incompatible with their status as inferior officers. Founding-era congressional statutes and early decisions from this Court indicate that adequate supervision entails review of decisions issued by inferior officers. See, e.g., 1 Stat. 66–67; Barnard v. Ashley, 18 How. 43, 45. Congress carried that model of principal officer review into the modern administrative state. See, e.g., 5 U. S. C. §557(b).

  According to the Government and Smith & Nephew, heads of department appoint a handful of contemporary officers who purportedly exercise final decisionmaking authority. Several of their examples, however, involve inferior officers whose decisions a superior executive officer can review or implement a system for reviewing. See, e.g., Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868. Nor does the structure of the PTAB draw support from the predecessor Board of Appeals, which determined the patentability of inventions in panels composed of examiners-in-chief without an appeal to the Commissioner. 44 Stat. 1335–1336. Those Board decisions could be reviewed by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals—an executive tribunal—and may also have been subject to the unilateral control of the agency head. Pp. 14–18.

  (d) The Court does not attempt to “set forth an exclusive criterion for distinguishing between principal and inferior officers for Appointments Clause purposes.” Edmond, 520 U. S., at 661. Many decisions by inferior officers do not bind the Executive Branch to exercise executive power in a particular manner, and the Court does not address supervision outside the context of adjudication. Here, however, Congress has assigned APJs “significant authority” in adjudicating the public rights of private parties, while also insulating their decisions from review and their offices from removal. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 126. Pp. 18–19.

  The Chief Justice, joined by Justice Alito, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett, concluded in Part III that §6(c) cannot constitutionally be enforced to the extent that its requirements prevent the Director from reviewing final decisions rendered by APJs. The Director accordingly may review final PTAB decisions and, upon review, may issue decisions himself on behalf of the Board. Section 6(c) otherwise remains operative as to the other members of the PTAB. When reviewing such a decision by the Director, a court must decide the case “conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law” placing restrictions on his review authority in violation of Article II. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 178.

  The appropriate remedy is a remand to the Acting Director to decide whether to rehear the petition filed by Smith & Nephew. A limited remand provides an adequate opportunity for review by a principal officer. Because the source of the constitutional violation is the restraint on the review authority of the Director, rather than the appointment of APJs by the Secretary, Arthrex is not entitled to a hearing before a new panel of APJs. Pp. 19–23.

 Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, in which Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part III, in which Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Gorsuch, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Breyer, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which Sotomayor and Kagan, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined as to Parts I and II.

Notes
¹ Together with No. 19–1452, Smith & Nephew, Inc., et al. v. Arthrex, Inc., et al. and No. 19–1458, Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

In 2000, the District Court for the Western District of Missouri sentenced petitioner Marcus DeAngelo Jones after he was convicted on two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1), and one count of making false statements to acquire a firearm. The Eighth Circuit affirmed Jones’ convictions and sentence. Jones then filed a motion pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2255, which resulted in the vacatur of one of his concurrent §922(g) sentences. Many years later, this Court held in Rehaif v. United States, 588 U. S. ___, that a defendant’s knowledge of the status that disqualifies him from owning a firearm is an element of a §922(g) conviction. Rehaif ’s holding abrogated contrary Eighth Circuit precedent applied by the courts in Jones’ trial and direct appeal. Seeking to collaterally attack his remaining §922(g) conviction based on Rehaif ’s statutory holding, Jones filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. §2241 in the district of his imprisonment, the Eastern District of Arkansas. The District Court dismissed Jones’ habeas petition for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

Held: Section 2255(e) does not allow a prisoner asserting an intervening change in interpretation of a criminal statute to circumvent the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996’s (AEDPA) restrictions on second or successive §2255 motions by filing a §2241 habeas petition. Pp. 3–25.

  (a) Congress created §2255 as a remedial vehicle by which federal prisoners could collaterally attack their sentences by motion in the sentencing court, rather than by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under §2241 in the district of confinement. The “sole purpose” of §2255 was to address the “serious administrative problems” created by district courts collaterally reviewing one another’s proceedings without access to needed evidence and “aggravated” by the concentration of federal prisoners in certain judicial districts that therefore faced “an inordinate number of habeas corpus actions.” United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 212–214, 219. To make this change effective, Congress generally barred federal prisoners “authorized” to file a §2255 motion from filing a petition under §2241. But—in a provision of §2255(e) now known as the saving clause—Congress preserved access to §2241 in cases where “the remedy by motion is inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [a prisoner’s] detention.”

  Congress later enacted AEDPA, which, as relevant here, barred second or successive §2255 motions unless based on either “newly discovered evidence,” §2255(h)(1), or “a new rule of constitutional law,” §2255(h)(2). Some courts faced with AEDPA’s second-or-successive restrictions held that §2255 was “inadequate and ineffective” under the saving clause when AEDPA’s restrictions barred a prisoner from seeking relief based on a new interpretation of a criminal statute that circuit precedent had foreclosed at the time of the prisoner’s trial, appeal, and first §2255 motion.

  Section 2255(e)’s saving clause does not authorize that end-run around AEDPA. The clause preserves recourse to §2241 in cases where unusual circumstances make it impossible or impracticable to seek relief in the sentencing court, as well as for challenges to detention other than collateral attacks on a sentence. But §2255(h) specifies the two limited conditions in which federal prisoners may bring second or successive collateral attacks on their sentences. The inability of a prisoner with a statutory claim to satisfy §2255(h) does not mean that the prisoner may bring the claim in a §2241 petition. Pp. 3–12.

  (b) Jones and the United States each advance unpersuasive theories of when and why §2255(h)’s exclusion of statutory claims sometimes renders §2255 inadequate or ineffective for purposes of the saving clause. Pp. 12–25.

    (1) Jones argues that §2255 is necessarily “inadequate or ineffective to test” a prisoner’s claim if the §2255 court fails to apply the correct substantive law. But the saving clause is concerned with the adequacy or effectiveness of the remedial vehicle (“the remedy by motion”), not any court’s asserted errors of law. Next, Jones argues that courts of equity would afford relief from “inadequate” legal remedies in a broad range of circumstances; to the extent relevant to §2255(e), this proves at most that a variety of practical obstacles might trigger the saving clause, cf. Hayman, 342 U. S., at 215, n. 23, not that the clause offers an exemption from AEDPA’s limits on second or successive collateral attacks. Jones further argues that the saving clause’s use of the present tense (“is inadequate or ineffective”) means that §2241 is available whenever a prisoner is presently unable to file a §2255 motion. That argument would nullify AEDPA’s limits on collateral relief.

  Jones suggests that denying him the chance to raise his Rehaif claim in a §2241 petition would violate the Suspension Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 2. This argument fails because it would extend the writ of habeas corpus far beyond its scope when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. Department of Homeland Security v. Thuraissigiam, 591 U. S. ___, ___. When the Suspension Clause was adopted, Jones’ Rehaif claim would not have been cognizable in habeas at all. At the founding, a sentence after conviction “by a court of competent jurisdiction” was “ ‘in itself sufficient cause’ ” for a prisoner’s continued detention. Brown v. Davenport, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (quoting Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202). Of particular relevance here, a habeas court had no power to “look beyond the judgment” to “re-examine the charges on which it was rendered” for substantive errors of law—even “if . . . the [sentencing] court ha[d] misconstrued the law, and ha[d] pronounced an offence to be punishable criminally, which [was] not so.” Id., at 202, 209. While Jones argues that pre-founding practice was otherwise, he fails to identify a single clear case of habeas being used to relitigate a conviction after trial by a court of general criminal jurisdiction.

  The principles of Ex parte Watkins guided this Court’s understanding of the habeas writ throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th. See Brown, 596 U. S., at ___, n. 1 (collecting cases). It was not until 1974, in Davis v. United States, 417 U. S. 333, that the Court held for the first time that a substantive error of statutory law could be a cognizable ground for a collateral attack on a federal court’s criminal judgment. See id., at 342–347. The Suspension Clause neither constitutionalizes that innovation nor requires its extension to a second or successive collateral attack.

  Jones’ remaining constitutional arguments are no more persuasive. He argues that denying him a new opportunity for collateral review of his Rehaif claim threatens Congress’s exclusive power to define crimes, but a court does not usurp legislative power simply by misinterpreting the law in a given case. Next, Jones points to Fiore v. White, 531 U. S. 225 (per curiam), which applied the rule that due process requires that the prosecution prove every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. But due process does not guarantee a direct appeal, McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687, let alone the opportunity to have legal issues redetermined in successive collateral attacks. Finally, the Eighth Amendment’s constraint on the kinds of punishments governments may inflict creates no independent entitlement to a second round of postconviction review. Pp. 12–20.

   (2) The Government asks the Court to adopt a novel interpretation of §2255(e)’s saving clause based on an elaborate argument. Starting from the premise that the words “inadequate or ineffective” imply reference to a “benchmark” of adequacy and effectiveness, the Government equates that benchmark with the types of claims cognizable in federal habeas petitions by state prisoners under the general habeas statutes. The Government ultimately concludes that §2255(h) renders §2255 “inadequate or ineffective to test” a federal prisoner’s statutory claim in cases where the prisoner has already filed one §2255 motion and the claim otherwise satisfies pre-AEDPA habeas principles, which generally will require “a ‘colorable showing of factual innocence.’ ” McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 495 (quoting Kuhlmann v. Wilson, 477 U. S. 436, 454 (plurality opinion)).

  The Court sees no indication that the saving clause adopts the Government’s state-prisoner-habeas benchmark. In any event, that benchmark has uncertain relevance to the question presented here because federal habeas relief does not lie for errors of state law. The Government’s theory ultimately rests instead on its assertion that §2255(h) is simply not clear enough to support the inference that Congress entirely closed the door on pure statutory claims not brought in a federal prisoner’s initial §2255 motion. That assertion is unpersuasive.

  The Government asserts that the Court must require “the clearest command” before construing AEDPA to “close [the] courthouse doors” on “a strong equitable claim” for relief. Holland v. Florida, 560 U. S. 631, 646, 649 (internal quotation marks omitted). But AEDPA’s restrictions embody Congress’s policy judgment regarding the appropriate balance between finality and error correction. The Court declines to adopt a presumption against finality. Further, the Court typically has found clear-statement rules appropriate when a statute implicates historically or constitutionally grounded norms that the Court would not expect Congress to unsettle lightly. See, e.g., Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (per curiam). As far as history and the Constitution are concerned, “there is nothing incongruous about a system in which this kind of error—the application of a since-rejected statutory interpretation—cannot be remedied after final judgment,” George v. McDonough, 596 U. S. ___, ___, and thus nothing fundamentally surprising about Congress declining to make such errors remediable in a second or successive collateral attack. Pp. 20–25.

8 F. 4th 683, affirmed.

 Thomas, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined. Sotomayor and Kagan, JJ., filed a dissenting opinion. Jackson, J., filed a dissenting opinion.