348
Scalia, J., dissenting
there is such a showing). This converts a statute redolent of permissiveness ("need not entertain") into a rigid command.2
The Kuhlmann plurality's concern about caprice is met— as it is met for all decisions committed by law to the discretion of lower courts—by applying traditional "abuse-of-discretion" standards. A judge who dismisses a successive petition because he misconceives some question of law, because he detests the petitioner's religion, or because he would rather play golf, may be reversed. A judge who dismisses a successive petition because it is the petitioner's twenty-second, rather than his second, because its "only purpose is to vex, harass, or delay," Sanders, supra, at 18, or because the constitutional claims can be seen to be frivolous on the face of the papers—for any of the numerous considerations that have "a rational bearing on the propriety of the discharge sought," Salinger, 265 U. S., at 231 (emphasis added)—may not be commanded to reach the merits because "the ends of justice" require. Here as elsewhere in the law, to say that a district judge may not abuse his discretion is merely to say that the action in question (dismissing a successive petition) may not be done without considering relevant factors and giving a "justifying reason," Foman v. Davis, 371 U. S. 178, 182 (1962). See also American Dredging Co. v. Miller, 510 U. S. 443, 455 (1994). It is a failure of logic, and an arrogation of authority, to "guide" that discretion by holding that what Congress authorized the district court to do may not be done at all.
The Court's assumption that the requirement imposed by the Kuhlmann plurality should be taken as law can find no support in our subsequent decisions. To be sure, some cases restate the supposed duty in the course of historical surveys of the area. See, e. g., McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S.
2 The present case does not, of course, present the question whether the Kuhlmann plurality was wrong to identify a category of petitions that must not be entertained—a disposition that is at least compatible with the text of § 2244(b).
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