Whether the Court of Appeals egregiously misapplied this Court's standard for issuing a certificate of appealability in the face of a substantial showing of the denial of constitutional rights

QUESTION PRESENTED David Meister, an Idaho prisoner, is serving two concurrent sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Tonya Hart. Mr. Meister was 18 years old when he became a suspect in Hart’s murder. Under heavy police questioning, he confessed to killing Hart, but he later recanted and claimed that his confession was false. The trial court limited a defense expert’s testimony that would have cast serious doubt on the reliability of the confession, curtailing Mr. Meister’s right to present a complete defense. And his trial counsel failed to develop critical evidence that would have proven his alibi while also undermining the veracity of the confession. Despite a long journey through the state and federal courts, these critical constitutional errors have never been developed and heard on their merits, much less corrected. Yet the Court of Appeals denied Mr. Meister even the opportunity to raise them in an appeal from the denial of his habeas corpus petition. This petition raises the following question: Whether the Court of Appeals egregiously misapplied this Court’s standard for issuing a certificate of appealability in the face of a substantial showing of the denial of constitutional rights.