350
Scalia, J., concurring
constitutional rights were violated, if all reasonable jurists would conclude that a substantive provision of the federal habeas statute bars relief. Ante, at 336. To give an example, suppose a state prisoner presents a constitutional claim that reasonable jurists might find debatable, but is unable to find any "clearly established" Supreme Court precedent in support of that claim (which was previously rejected on the merits in state-court proceedings). Under the Court's view, a COA must be denied, even if the habeas petitioner satisfies the "substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right" requirement of § 2253(c)(2), because all reasonable jurists would agree that habeas relief is impossible to obtain under § 2254(d). This approach is consonant with Slack, in accord with the COA's purpose of preventing meritless habeas appeals, and compatible with the text of § 2253(c), which does not make the "substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right" a sufficient condition for a COA.
II
In applying the Court's COA standard to petitioner's case, we must ask whether petitioner has made a substantial showing of a Batson violation and also whether reasonable jurists could debate petitioner's ability to obtain habeas relief in light of AEDPA. The facts surrounding petitioner's Batson claims, when viewed in light of § 2254(e)(1)'s requirement that state-court factual determinations can be overcome only by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, reveal this to be a close, rather than a clear, case for the granting of a COA.
Petitioner maintains that the following six African-American jurors were victims of racially motivated peremptory strikes: Edwin Rand, Wayman Kennedy, Roderick Bozeman, Billy Jean Fields, Joe Warren, and Carrol Boggess. As to each of them, the State proffered race-neutral explanations for its peremptory challenge. Five were challenged primarily because of their views on imposing the death pen-
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