Cite as: 513 U. S. 298 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
within the "narrow class of cases . . . implicating a fundamental miscarriage of justice," id., at 494. Schlup's claim of innocence is offered only to bring him within this "narrow class of cases."
Schlup's claim thus differs in at least two important ways from that presented in Herrera. First, Schlup's claim of innocence does not by itself provide a basis for relief. Instead, his claim for relief depends critically on the validity of his Strickland and Brady claims.30 Schlup's claim of innocence is thus "not itself a constitutional claim, but instead a gateway through which a habeas petitioner must pass to have his otherwise barred constitutional claim considered on the merits." Herrera, 506 U. S., at 404; see also 11 F. 3d, at 740.31
More importantly, a court's assumptions about the validity of the proceedings that resulted in conviction are fundamentally different in Schlup's case than in Herrera's. In Herrera, petitioner's claim was evaluated on the assumption that the trial that resulted in his conviction had been error free. In such a case, when a petitioner has been "tried before a jury of his peers, with the full panoply of protections that our Constitution affords criminal defendants," 506 U. S., at 419 (O'Connor, J., concurring), it is appropriate to apply an
30 In light of our conclusion that the courts below applied the wrong standard in evaluating Schlup's gateway innocence claim, see infra, at 326-327, we need not express a view concerning the merits of Schlup's underlying constitutional claims.
31 In his submissions to the federal courts, Schlup has consistently argued that his execution would violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because he is actually innocent. That Herrera claim was rejected in the District Court and in the Court of Appeals. In the dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc, three judges stated that they were persuaded by Judge Heaney's dissent that there was "at least a substantial likelihood" that Schlup could meet even the extraordinarily high showing required by Herrera. We denied certiorari on Schlup's Herrera claim, and accordingly we express no opinion as to its merits.
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