Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 300

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 236 (1998)

255

Scalia, J., dissenting

2253(c)(1), the statutorily required certiﬁcate was called a
“certiﬁcate of probable cause” rather than a certiﬁcate of ap-
pealability, but the effect of failure to obtain it was precisely
the same: The case could not proceed to the court of appeals.
On an attempt to obtain review of denial of the certiﬁcate in
this Court, we held that since petitioner’s “case was never
‘in’ the court of appeals, for want of a certiﬁcate,” we lacked
jurisdiction under § 1254(1).

Ibid.
The Court concedes that House is squarely on point but
opts to overrule it because its “conclusion was erroneous,”
ante, at 251. The Court does not dispute that petitioner’s
§ 2255 action was never in the Court of Appeals; its overrul-
ing of House is instead based on the proposition that peti-
tioner’s request for a COA is, in and of itself, a “case” within
the meaning of § 1254(1), see ante, at 241–242, 246–249, and
that that case was “in” the Court of Appeals and hence can
be reviewed here, ante, at 241–246. Most of the Court’s
analysis is expended in the effort to establish that petitioner
made his request for a COA to the Court of Appeals as such,
rather than to the circuit judges in their individual capacity,
ibid. Even that effort is unsuccessful, since it comes up
against the pellucid language of AEDPA to the contrary.
Section 102 does not permit application for a COA to a court
of appeals; it states that the application must be made to a
“circuit justice or judge.” That this means precisely what it
says is underscored by § 103 of AEDPA, which amends Rule
22 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure: “If [a COA]
it shall be
request is addressed to the court of appeals,
deemed addressed to the judges thereof and shall be consid-
ered by a circuit judge or judges as the court deems appro-
priate.” As though drafted in anticipatory refutation of the
Court’s countertextual holding today, the Advisory Commit-
tee’s Notes on Rule 22 explicitly state that “28 U. S. C. § 2253
does not authorize the court of appeals as a court to grant a
certiﬁcate of probable cause.”

28 U. S. C. App., p. 609.