Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322, 21 (2003)

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342

MILLER-EL v. COCKRELL

Opinion of the Court

requirement and applies to the granting of habeas relief rather than to the granting of a COA.

The Court of Appeals, moreover, was incorrect for an even more fundamental reason. Before the issuance of a COA, the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction to resolve the merits of petitioner's constitutional claims. True, to the extent that the merits of this case will turn on the agreement or disagreement with a state-court factual finding, the clear and convincing evidence and objective unreasonableness standards will apply. At the COA stage, however, a court need not make a definitive inquiry into this matter. As we have said, a COA determination is a separate proceeding, one distinct from the underlying merits. Slack, 529 U. S., at 481; Hohn, 524 U. S., at 241. The Court of Appeals should have inquired whether a "substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right" had been proved. Deciding the substance of an appeal in what should only be a threshold inquiry undermines the concept of a COA. The question is the debatability of the underlying constitutional claim, not the resolution of that debate.

In this case, the statistical evidence alone raises some debate as to whether the prosecution acted with a race-based reason when striking prospective jurors. The prosecutors used their peremptory strikes to exclude 91% of the eligible African-American venire members, and only one served on petitioner's jury. In total, 10 of the prosecutors' 14 peremptory strikes were used against African-Americans. Happenstance is unlikely to produce this disparity.

The case for debatability is not weakened when we examine the State's defense of the disparate treatment. The Court of Appeals held that "[t]he presumption of correctness is especially strong, where, as here, the trial court and state habeas court are one and the same." 261 F. 3d, at 449. As we have noted, the trial court held its Batson hearing two years after the voir dire. While the prosecutors had proffered contemporaneous race-neutral justifications for many

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