Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 282

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

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Syllabus

qualities of a “case.” That § 2253(c)(1) permits the certiﬁcate to be is-
sued by a “circuit justice or judge” does not mean the judge’s denial of
a certiﬁcate is his or her own action, rather than the court’s. The fact
that Hohn’s application moved through the Eighth Circuit in the same
manner as cases in general do, yielding a decision that has been re-
garded in that court as precedential, suggests the application was as
much a case in the Court of Appeals as any other matter. This conclu-
sion is also conﬁrmed by the adoption by every Court of Appeals but
one of rules governing the disposition of certiﬁcate applications; by the
issuance of the order denying Hohn’s certiﬁcate in the name of the court
and under its seal; by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 22(b), which
speciﬁcally provides for consideration of certiﬁcate applications by the
entire court of appeals; by Federal Rule 27(c), which authorizes the
court of appeals to review decisions that individual judges are author-
ized to make on their own; by Eighth Circuit Rule 27B(b)(2), which lists
grants of probable cause certiﬁcates by individual judges as reviewable
decisions under Rule 27(c); and by the uniform practice of the courts of
appeals, see In re Burwell, 350 U. S. 521, 522. Early cases acknowledg-
ing that this Court may not review a federal judge’s actions performed
in an administrative, as opposed to a judicial, capacity, see, e. g., United
States v. Ferreira, 13 How. 40, 51–52, are inapposite because certiﬁcate
application decisions are judicial in nature. The contention of the dis-
sent and the Court-appointed amicus that the failure to satisfy a thresh-
old prerequisite for court of appeals jurisdiction, such as the issuance of
a certiﬁcate of appealability, prevents a case from ever being “in” that
court under § 1254(1) is foreclosed by precedent. See, e. g., Ex parte
Quirin, 317 U. S. 1, 24; Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 731, 742–743, and
n. 23; and Automobile Workers v. Scoﬁeld, 382 U. S. 205, 208–209. The
argument is also refuted by the recent amendment to § 2244(b)(3)(E)
barring certiorari review of court of appeals denials of motions to ﬁle
second or successive habeas applications, which would have been super-
ﬂuous were such a motion not a case in the court of appeals for § 1254(1)
purposes, see, e. g., Kawaauhau v. Geiger, 523 U. S. 57, 62, and which
contrasts tellingly with the absence of an analogous limitation on certio-
rari review of denials of appealability certiﬁcate applications, see, e. g.,
Bates v. United States, 522 U. S. 23, 29–30. Today’s holding conforms
the Court’s commonsense practice to the statutory scheme, making it
unnecessary to invoke the Court’s extraordinary jurisdiction in routine
cases, which present important and meritorious claims such as Hohn’s.
Although the decision directly conﬂicts with the portion of House v.
Mayo, 324 U. S. 42, 48 (per curiam), holding this Court lacks statutory
certiorari jurisdiction to review denials of certiﬁcates of probable cause,
stare decisis does not require adherence to that erroneous conclusion,