Cite as: 524 U. S. 236 (1998)
Scalia, J., dissenting
Of course even if one accepts that the two factors the Court alludes to (procedural ruling plus absence of full briefing or argument) reduce House's stare decisis effect, one must still acknowledge that its stare decisis effect is increased by the fact that it was a statutory holding. The Court does not contend that stare decisis is utterly inapplicable, and so it must come up with some reason for ignoring it. Its reason is that we have "disregarded" House in practice. Ante, at 252. The opinions it cites for this proposition, however, not only fail to mention House; they fail to mention the jurisdictional issue to which House pertains. And "we have repeatedly held that the existence of unad-dressed jurisdictional defects has no precedential effect." Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 352, n. 2 (1996) (emphasis added). Surely it constitutes "precedential effect" to reduce the stare decisis effect of one of the Court's holdings. It is significant, moreover, that when Members of the Court have discussed House or the jurisdictional effect of a COA denial, they have agreed that jurisdiction is not available under § 1254. See Davis v. Jacobs, 454 U. S. 911, 912 (1981) (Stevens, J., respecting denial of certiorari); id., at 916-917 (Rehnquist, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Powell, J., dissenting); Jeffries v. Barksdale, 453 U. S. 914, 915-916 (1981) (Rehnquist, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Powell, J., dissenting). The Court's new approach to unaddressed jurisdictional defects is perhaps the second point for which the present opinion will be remembered.
While there is scant reason for denying stare decisis effect to House, there is special reason for according it: the reliance of Congress upon an unrepudiated decision central to the procedural scheme it was creating. Section 102 of AEDPA continues a long tradition of provisions enacted by Congress that limit appellate review of petitions. In 1908, Congress required a certificate of probable cause in habeas corpus cases involving state prisoners before an appeal would lie to
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