Cite as: 523 U. S. 637 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
his competency to be executed could not be determined at that time. But 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 would bar the prisoner from ever obtaining federal habeas review. See, e. g., United States ex rel. Barnes v. Gilmore, 968 F. Supp. 384, 385 (ND Ill. 1997) ("If Barnes continues in his nonpayment of the required $5 filing fee . . . this Court will be constrained to dismiss his petition"); Marsh v. United States District Court for the Northern District of California, 1995 WL 23942 (ND Cal., Jan. 9, 1995) ("Because petitioner has since not paid the filing fee nor submitted a signed affidavit of poverty, the petition for writ of habeas corpus is dismissed without preju-dice"); Taylor v. Mendoza, 1994 WL 698493 (ND Ill., Dec. 12, 1994).*
Petitioners place great reliance on our decision in Felker v. Turpin, 518 U. S. 651 (1996), but we think that reliance is misplaced. In Felker we stated that the "new restrictions on successive petitions constitute a modified res judicata rule, a restraint on what used to be called in habeas corpus practice 'abuse of the writ.' " Id., at 664. It is certain that respondent's Ford claim would not be barred under any form of res judicata. Respondent brought his claim in a timely fashion, and it has not been ripe for resolution until now.
Thus, respondent's Ford claim was not a "second or successive" petition under § 2244(b) and we have jurisdiction to review the judgment of the Court of Appeals on petitioners' petition for certiorari. But for the same reasons that we find we have jurisdiction, we hold that the Court of Appeals was correct in deciding that respondent was entitled to a
*This case does not present the situation where a prisoner raises a Ford claim for the first time in a petition filed after the federal courts have already rejected the prisoner's initial habeas application. Therefore, we have no occasion to decide whether such a filing would be a "second or successive habeas corpus application" within the meaning of AEDPA.
645
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