Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 302

524US1

Unit: $U85

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

257

Scalia, J., dissenting

any more than a “case or controversy” for purposes of initial
federal-court jurisdiction is created by a dispute over venue,
between parties who agree on everything else.1

As is true with most erroneous theories, a logical and con-
sistent application of the Court’s reasoning yields strange
If dispute over the propriety of granting a COA
results.
creates a “case,” the denial of a COA request that has been
unopposed (or, better yet, has been supported by the Govern-
ment) will be unreviewable, whereas denial of a request that
is vigorously opposed will be reviewed—surely an upside-
down result. And the “case” concerning the COA will sub-
sist even when the § 2255 suit has been mooted by the peti-
tioner’s release from prison. These bizarre consequences
follow inevitably from the Court’s “separate case” theory,
which has been fabricated in order to achieve a result that
is fundamentally at odds with the purpose of the statute.
For the Court insists upon assuming, contrary to the plain
import of the statute, that Congress wanted petitioner’s
§ 2255 action to proceed “in the ordinary course of the judi-
cial process” and to follow the “general rule” that permits an
If this were
appeal from a ﬁnal district court order, ibid.
Congress’s wish, there would have been no need for § 102 of
AEDPA. The whole point of that provision is to diverge
from the ordinary course of the judicial process and to keep
petitioner’s case against respondent out of the Court of Ap-
peals unless petitioner obtains a COA.
“The certiﬁcate is a
screening device, helping to conserve judicial (and prosecuto-
rial) resources.” Young v. United States, 124 F. 3d 794, 799

1 The Court has no response to this.

Its observation that a dispute over
venue is not unreviewable simply because it is preliminary, ante, at 248–
249, is accurate but irrelevant. The issue is not whether a venue dispute
may be reviewed at all, but whether it may be reviewed in isolation from
It may not, because a venue dispute,
some case of which it is a part.
standing alone—like a request for a COA, standing alone—lacks the requi-
site qualities of a case.
If the entire § 2255 proceeding was not “in” the
Court of Appeals, the COA request alone was not a “case” that § 1254
authorizes us to review.