pleadings of a pro se litigant are liberally construed. See Pugh v. Smith, 465 F.3d 1295, 1300 (11th Cir.2006). A procedural default arises when the state court correctly applies a procedural principle of state law and concludes that the petitioner’s claim is barred. Bailey v. Nagle, 172 F.3d 1299, 1302 (11th Cir.1999). When a state court refuses to address the merits of a state prisoner’s claims based on state law, the federal habeas court is precluded from hearing the merits absent a showing of cause for the default and actual prejudice, or that the failure to consider the claim would result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice. Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U.S. 722, 749-50, 111 S.Ct. 2546, 2564-65, 115 L.Ed.2d 640 (1991); see also Alderman v. Zant, 22 F.3d 1541, 1549 (11th Cir.1994) (<HOLDING>). A federal court must determine “whether the
holding that either the district court or the court of appeals must issue a certificate of appealability on both the merits and the procedural bar before we can consider the merits of a claim that the district court held to be procedurally barred recognizing that the district court did not reach the merits holding that if the state court addresses both the procedural default and the merits of a federal claim in the alternative a federal court should apply the state procedural bar and decline to reach the merits of the claim holding that a state procedural default will not bar consideration of a federal claim on habeas review unless the last state court rendering a judgment clearly and expressly stated that its judgment rested on a state procedural bar holding that the federal habeas corpus court could reach the merits of a due process claim even though there was no contemporaneous objection in state court trial where the state habeas corpus court reached the merits rather than rely on the procedural default defense