In the case of Thomas Joe Miller-El v. Janie Cockrell, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division (2002), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Miller-El by a 8–1 decision that he was entitled to a certificate of appealability (COA). The court found that there was sufficient evidence to suggest racial bias had been involved in jury selection during his trial for capital murder. This ruling allowed him to further pursue an appeal on these grounds. The decision emphasized that when determining whether a COA should be issued, courts must consider whether jurists could find it debatable or wrong rather than making their own determination about the correctness or incorrectness of the lower court's resolution.

In the dissenting opinion for Thomas Joe Miller-El v. Janie Cockrell, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the majority had misapplied federal law by granting habeas corpus relief to a convicted murderer based on perceived racial bias in jury selection. He contended that there was no clear evidence of purposeful discrimination and that race-neutral reasons were provided for each juror strike during voir dire. Furthermore, he criticized the majority's reliance on statistical disparities and historical patterns of discrimination as proof of contemporary bias in this specific case. In his view, such an approach undermined precedent requiring individualized inquiry into discriminatory intent and could potentially invalidate many convictions without concrete proof of intentional bias.