## Facts

- Seventeen state prisoners filed federal habeas corpus petitions challenging their state custody.
- Federal district courts dismissed the habeas petitions as meritless and refused to issue certificates of probable cause under 28 U.S.C. § 2253.
- The prisoners attempted to pursue appeals in the federal courts of appeals without certificates of probable cause; the courts of appeals declined to entertain the appeals.
- The prisoners petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for writs of certiorari, effectively seeking review despite the absence of certificates.
- The Supreme Court entered an order denying the petitions for certiorari; Justice Stevens wrote an opinion respecting the denial, and Justice Rehnquist (joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Powell) dissented on jurisdictional grounds.

## Issues

1. Whether the Supreme Court may deny certiorari where state-prisoner habeas appeals were not properly before the courts of appeals due to the absence of certificates of probable cause required by 28 U.S.C. § 2253.
2. Whether, given 28 U.S.C. § 1254’s limitation to “[c]ases in the courts of appeals,” the proper disposition is dismissal for lack of jurisdiction rather than denial of certiorari.
3. Whether extraordinary authority, including the All Writs Act, can be used to grant review or equivalent relief despite Congress’s certificate requirement.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court denied the petitions for writs of certiorari.
- Justice Stevens concluded that none of the prisoners presented a meritorious basis for extraordinary intervention and that granting a certificate of probable cause would be improper.
- Justice Rehnquist dissented, arguing the Court lacked jurisdiction because, without a certificate of probable cause, the cases were never properly “in” the courts of appeals; he would have dismissed the petitions for want of jurisdiction.

## Legal Principles

- For state-prisoner habeas cases, a certificate of probable cause under 28 U.S.C. § 2253 is a statutory prerequisite to appellate review.
- Congress’s certificate requirement limits appellate review; extraordinary writ practice cannot be used to bypass the statutory restriction.
- Denial of certiorari is a discretionary refusal to review and does not decide the merits; the Court may examine the record sufficiently to determine whether any extraordinary relief is warranted.
- A jurisdictional view (as stated in dissent) treats the absence of a certificate as preventing a “case” from being in the court of appeals for purposes of Supreme Court review under 28 U.S.C. § 1254, requiring dismissal rather than denial.

## Conclusion

The Court refused review of multiple state-prisoner habeas matters lacking certificates of probable cause, while the separate writings disputed whether the Court could deny certiorari in that posture or instead had to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, emphasizing the certificate requirement’s control over appellate access.


Davis v. Jacobs, 454 U.S. 911 (1981)