336
Opinion of the Court
obtain a COA from a circuit justice or judge. This is a jurisdictional prerequisite because the COA statute mandates that "[u]nless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, an appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals. . . ." § 2253(c)(1). As a result, until a COA has been issued federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to rule on the merits of appeals from habeas petitioners.
A COA will issue only if the requirements of § 2253 have been satisfied. "The COA statute establishes procedural rules and requires a threshold inquiry into whether the circuit court may entertain an appeal." Slack, 529 U. S., at 482; Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236, 248 (1998). As the Court of Appeals observed in this case, § 2253(c) permits the issuance of a COA only where a petitioner has made a "substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right." In Slack, supra, at 483, we recognized that Congress codified our standard, announced in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880 (1983), for determining what constitutes the requisite showing. Under the controlling standard, a petitioner must "sho[w] that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were 'adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.' " 529 U. S., at 484 (quoting Barefoot, supra, at 893, n. 4).
The COA determination under § 2253(c) requires an overview of the claims in the habeas petition and a general assessment of their merits. We look to the District Court's application of AEDPA to petitioner's constitutional claims and ask whether that resolution was debatable amongst jurists of reason. This threshold inquiry does not require full consideration of the factual or legal bases adduced in support of the claims. In fact, the statute forbids it. When a court of appeals sidesteps this process by first deciding the merits of an appeal, and then justifying its denial of a COA based
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