Whether a certificate of appealability should issue as a matter of course

QUESTIONS PRESENTED I. Whether a certificate of appealability should issue as a matter of course where reasonable jurists— here, the district court and the magistrate judge— have disagreed over whether the petition states a substantial claim, as the Second and Sixth Circuits have held, and contrary to the Ninth Circuit below and the Eleventh Circuit. Il. Whether, under Yist v. Nunnemaker, 501 U.S. 797 (1991), and Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188 (2018), a federal court should “look through” the last reasoned procedural decision of a higher state court to the reasoned merits decision of a lower state court in assessing the merits of a federal habeas claim, as the Ninth Circuit ruled below, or whether the “last reasoned decision” may rest on procedural grounds, as the Second, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits have held and as it did in Yist. i