Bowe v. United States · ¶121

Our decision in Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236 (1998), is equally telling. That case concerned 28 U. S. C. §2253(c), which requires a federal prisoner to obtain a certificate of appealability (COA) before he may appeal a district court’s adverse decision in a §2255 proceeding. The jurisdictional question before the Court was whether a court of appeals’ denial of a COA is a “case” within the meaning of §1254(1) and thus reviewable on certiorari. 524 U. S., at 241. Concluding that it is, the Court leaned heavily on a comparison between §2253(c) and §2244(b)(3)(E). The latter provision, the Court said, imposes a “clear limit” on our jurisdiction. Id., at 250. And, the Court reasoned, the existence of that “clear limit,” coupled with the absence of comparable language in §2253(c), suggested that federal prisoners may seek certiorari to challenge an adverse COA decision. See id., at…

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