Cite as: 531 U. S. 4 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
Appeals, 506 U. S. 1 (1992) (per curiam), or on all filers generally, cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2253(c) (1994 ed., Supp. IV) (conditioning the taking of an appeal on the issuance of a "certificate of appealability"). But in common usage, the question whether an application has been "properly filed" is quite separate from the question whether the claims contained in the application are meritorious and free of procedural bar.
Petitioner contends that such an interpretation of the statutory phrase renders the word "properly," and possibly both words ("properly filed"), surplusage, since if the provision omitted those words, and tolled simply for "[t]he time during which a[n] . . . application for State post-conviction [relief] is pending," it would necessarily condition tolling on compliance with filing requirements of the sort described above. That is not so. If, for example, an application is erroneously accepted by the clerk of a court lacking jurisdiction, or is erroneously accepted without the requisite filing fee, it will be pending, but not properly filed.
Petitioner's interpretation is flawed for a more fundamental reason. By construing "properly filed application" to mean "application raising claims that are not mandatorily procedurally barred," petitioner elides the difference between an "application" and a "claim." Only individual claims, and not the application containing those claims, can be procedurally defaulted under state law pursuant to our holdings in Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722 (1991), and Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977), which establish the sort of procedural bar on which petitioner relies. Compare § 2244(b)(1) ("A claim presented in a second or successive habeas corpus application under section 2254 that was presented in a prior application shall be dismissed") with § 2244(b)(3)(A) ("Before a second or successive application permitted by this section is filed in the district court, the applicant shall move in the appropriate court of appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider the application" (emphases added)). See also O'Sullivan v. Boerckel,
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