Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 560.0

529US2

Unit: $U50

[09-26-01 10:29:49] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 473 (2000)

485

Opinion of the Court

nents, one directed at the underlying constitutional claims
and one directed at the district court’s procedural holding.
Section 2253 mandates that both showings be made before
the court of appeals may entertain the appeal. Each compo-
nent of the § 2253(c) showing is part of a threshold inquiry,
and a court may ﬁnd that it can dispose of the application in
a fair and prompt manner if it proceeds ﬁrst to resolve the
issue whose answer is more apparent from the record and
arguments. The recognition that the “Court will not pass
upon a constitutional question although properly presented
by the record, if there is also present some other ground
upon which the case may be disposed of,” Ashwander v. TVA,
297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring), allows and
encourages the court to ﬁrst resolve procedural issues. The
Ashwander rule should inform the court’s discretion in this
regard.

In this case, Slack did not attempt to make a substantial
showing of the denial of a constitutional right, instead ar-
guing only that the District Court’s procedural rulings were
wrong. We will not attempt to determine whether Slack
could make the required showing of constitutional error, for
the issue was neither briefed nor presented below because
of the view that the CPC, rather than COA, standards ap-
plied.
It will be necessary to consider the matter upon any
remand for further proceedings. We will, however, address
the second component of the § 2253(c) inquiry, whether ju-
rists of reason could conclude that the District Court’s dis-
missal on procedural grounds was debatable or incorrect.
The issue has been discussed in the briefs presented to us; it
is the question upon which we granted certiorari; and its
resolution would end the case, were we to decide the matter
in the State’s favor.

The District Court dismissed claims Slack failed to raise
in his 1991 petition based on its conclusion that Slack’s 1995
petition was a second or successive habeas petition. This
conclusion was wrong. A habeas petition ﬁled in the district