638
Syllabus
relief on his Ford claim does not mean that there were two separate applications, the second of which was necessarily subject to § 2244(b). There was only one application for habeas relief, and the District Court ruled (or should have ruled) on each claim when it became ripe. Since respondent was entitled to an adjudication of all of the claims presented in his earlier, undoubtedly reviewable, application, the Ninth Circuit correctly held that he was not required to get authorization to file a "second or successive" application before his Ford claim could be heard. Accepting petitioners' interpretation—that once an individual has one fully litigated habeas petition, his new petition must be treated as successive—would have far-reaching and seemingly perverse implications for habeas practice. This Court's cases have never suggested that a prisoner whose habeas petition was dismissed for failure to exhaust state remedies, and who then did exhaust those remedies and returned to federal court, was by such action filing a successive petition. A court would adjudicate those claims under the same standard as would govern those made in any other first petition. Respondent's Ford claim—previously dismissed as premature—should be treated in the same manner, for, in both situations, the habeas petitioner does not receive an adjudication of his claim. To hold otherwise would mean that a dismissal of a first habeas petition for technical procedural reasons, having nothing to do with the claim's merits, would bar the prisoner from ever obtaining federal habeas review. Petitioners' reliance on Felker v. Turpin, supra, for a contrary interpretation is misplaced. Pp. 641-645.
2. For the same reasons that this Court finds it has jurisdiction, it finds that the Ninth Circuit correctly decided that respondent was entitled to a hearing on the merits of his Ford claim in the District Court. Pp. 645-646.
118 F. 3d 628, affirmed.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined, post, p. 646. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Scalia, J., joined, post, p. 648.
Bruce M. Ferg, Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Grant Woods, Attorney General, pro se, and Paul J. McMurdie.
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