OCTOBER TERM, 1999
Syllabus
WILLIAMS
v. TAYLOR, WARDEN
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH
CIRCUIT
No. 98-8384. Argued October 4, 1999-Decided April 18, 2000
A Virginia jury convicted petitioner Williams of robbery and
capital murder, and, after a sentencing hearing, found a
probability of future dangerousness and unanimously fixed his
punishment at death. Concluding that such punishment was "proper"
and "just," the trial judge imposed the death sentence. The
Virginia Supreme Court affirmed. In state habeas corpus
proceedings, the same trial judge found, on the evidence adduced
after hearings, that Williams' conviction was valid, but that his
counsel's failure to discover and present significant mitigating
evidence violated his right to the effective assistance of counsel
under
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668. In
rejecting the trial judge's recommendation that Williams be
resentenced, the State Supreme Court held,
inter alia, that
the trial judge had failed to recognize that
Strickland had
been modified by
Lockhart v.
Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364, 369, and
that Williams had not suffered sufficient prejudice to warrant
relief. In habeas corpus proceedings under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, the
federal trial judge agreed with the state trial judge that the
death sentence was constitutionally infirm on
ineffective-assistance grounds. The federal judge identified five
categories of mitigating evidence that counsel had failed to
introduce and rejected the argument that such failure had been a
strategic decision to rely primarily on the fact that Williams had
confessed voluntarily. As to prejudice, the judge determined, among
other things, that there was a reasonable probability that, but for
counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would
have been different, see
Strickland, 466 U. S., at 694.
Applying an amended version of § 2254(d)(1) enacted in the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), the
judge concluded that the Virginia Supreme Court's decision "was
contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly
established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the
United States." The Fourth Circuit reversed, construing §
2254(d)(1) to prohibit federal habeas relief unless the state court
had interpreted or applied the relevant precedent in a manner that
reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable. The court
declared that it could not say that the Virginia Supreme Court's
decision on prejudice was an unreasonable application of the
Strickland or
Lockhart standards established by the
Supreme Court.
363
Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded.
163 F.3d
860, reversed and remanded.
JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court as to Parts
I, III, and IV, concluding that Williams was denied his
constitutionally guaranteed right to the effective assistance of
counsel, as defined in
Strickland, when his trial lawyers
failed to investigate and to present substantial mitigating
evidence to the sentencing jury. Pp. 390-398.
(a) The threshold question under AEDPA-whether Williams seeks to
apply a rule of law that was clearly established at the time his
statecourt conviction became final-is easily answered because the
merits of his claim are squarely governed by
Strickland. To
establish ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant must
prove: (1) that counsel's performance fell below an objective
standard of reasonableness, 466 U. S., at 688; and (2) that the
deficient performance prejudiced the defense, which requires a
showing that there is a reasonable probability that, but for
counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would
have been different,
id., at 694. Because the
Strickland test qualifies as "clearly established Federal
law, as determined by the Supreme Court," this Court's precedent
"dictated" that the Virginia Supreme Court apply that test in
entertaining Williams' ineffectiveassistance claim. See
Teague v.
Lane, 489 U. S. 288, 301. Pp.
390-391.
(b) Williams is entitled to relief because the Virginia Supreme
Court's decision rejecting his ineffective-assistance claim both is
"contrary to, [and] involved an unreasonable application of,
clearly established Federallaw."
Strickland provides
sufficient guidance for resolving virtually all
ineffective-assistance claims, and the Virginia Supreme Court erred
in holding that
Lockhart modified or in some way supplanted
Strickland. Although there are a few situations in which the
overriding focus on fundamental fairness may affect the analysis,
see
Strickland, 466 U. S., at 692, cases such as
Lockhart and
Nix v.
Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157, do not
justify a departure from a straightforward application of
Strickland when counsel's ineffectiveness deprives the
defendant of a substantive or procedural right to which the law
entitles him. Here, Williams had a constitutionally protected right
to provide mitigating evidence that his trial counsel either failed
to discover or failed to offer. Moreover, the Virginia trial judge
correctly applied both components of the
Strickland standard
to Williams' claim. The record establishes that counsel failed to
prepare for sentencing until a week beforehand, to uncover
extensive records graphically describing Williams' nightmarish
childhood, to introduce available evidence that Williams was
"borderline mentally retarded" and did not advance beyond sixth
grade, to seek prison records recording Williams' commendations
for
364
Syllabus
helping to crack a prison drug ring and for returning a guard's
missing wallet, and to discover the testimony of prison officials
who described Williams as among the inmates least likely to act
violently, dangerously, or provocatively, and of a prison minister
that Williams seemed to thrive in a more regimented environment.
Although not all of the additional evidence was favorable to
Williams, the failure to introduce the comparatively voluminous
amount of favorable evidence was not justified by a tactical
decision and clearly demonstrates that counsel did not fulfill
their ethical obligation to conduct a thorough investigation of
Williams' background. Moreover, counsel's unprofessional service
prejudiced Williams within
Strickland's meaning. The
Virginia Supreme Court's prejudice analysis was unreasonable in at
least two respects: (1) It was not only "contrary to," but
also-inasmuch as it relied on the inapplicable
Lockhart
exception-an "unreasonable application of," the clear law as
established in
Strickland; and (2) it failed to evaluate the
totality of, and to accord appropriate weight to, the available
mitigation evidence. Pp. 391-398.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court as to Part
II (except as to the footnote), concluding that § 2254(d)(1) places
a new constraint on the power of a federal habeas court to grant
relief to a state prisoner with respect to claims adjudicated on
the merits in state court: The habeas writ may issue only if the
state-court adjudication (1) "was contrary to," or (2) "involved an
unreasonable application of ... " clearly established Federal law,
as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States."
Pp.402-413.
(a) Because Williams filed his petition in 1997, his case is not
governed by the pre-1996 version of the federal habeas statute, but
by the statute as amended by AEDPA. Accordingly, for Williams to
obtain federal habeas relief, he must first demonstrate that his
case satisfies the condition set by § 2254(d)(1). That provision
modifies the previously settled rule of independent federal review
of state prisoners' habeas petitions in order to curb delays, to
prevent "retrials" on federal habeas, and to give effect to state
convictions to the extent possible under law. In light of the
cardinal principle of statutory construction that courts must give
effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a statute, this
Court must give independent meaning to both the "contrary to" and
"unreasonable application" clauses of § 2254(d)(1). Given the
commonly understood definitions of "contrary" as "diametrically
different," "opposite in character or nature," or "mutually
opposed," § 2254(d)(1)'s first clause must be interpreted to mean
that a federal habeas court may grant relief if the state court (1)
arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a
question of law or (2) decides a case differ-
365
ently than this Court has on a set of materially
indistinguishable facts. Under the "unreasonable application"
clause, a federal habeas court may grant relief if the state court
identifies the correct governing legal principle from this Court's
decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the facts of
the prisoner's case. Pp. 402-409.
(b) In defining what qualifies as an "unreasonable application
of ... clearly established Federal law," the Fourth Circuit erred
in holding that a state-court decision involves such an application
only if the state court has applied federal law in a manner that
reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable. That standard
would tend to mislead federal habeas courts by focusing on a
subjective inquiry. Rather, the federal court should ask whether
the state court's application of clearly established federal law
was objectively unreasonable. Cf.
Wright v.
West,
505 U. S. 277,
304. Although difficult to define, "unreasonable" is a common legal
term familiar to federal judges. For present purposes, the most
important point is that an
unreasonable application of
federal law is different from an
incorrect application of
federal law. See,
e. g., id., at 305. Because Congress
specifically used the word "unreasonable," and not a term like
"erroneous" or "incorrect," a federal habeas court may not grant
relief simply because it concludes in its independent judgment that
the relevant state-court decision applied clearly established
federal law erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application
must also be unreasonable. Finally, the phrase "clearly established
Federal law, as determined by [this] Court" refers to the holdings,
as opposed to the dicta, of this Court's decisions as of the time
of the relevant statecourt decision. In this respect, the quoted
phrase bears only a slight connection to this Court's jurisprudence
under
Teague v.
Lane, 489 U. S. 288. Whatever
would qualify as an "old rule" under
Teague will constitute
"clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this] Court,"
see,
e. g., Stringer v.
Black, 503 U. S. 222, 228, but
with one caveat: Section 2254(d)(1) restricts the source of clearly
established law to this Court's jurisprudence. Pp. 409-413.
STEVENS, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered
the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, in
which O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined,
and an opinion with respect to Parts II and V, in which SOUTER,
GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., delivered the
opinion of the Court with respect to Part II (except as to the
footnote), in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and KENNEDY and THOMAS, JJ.,
joined, and in which SCALIA, J., joined, except as to the footnote,
and an opinion concurring in part and
366
Syllabus
concurring in the judgment, in which KENNEDY, J., joined,
post, p. 399. REHNQUIST, C. J., filed an opinion concurring
in part and dissenting in part, in which SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ.,
joined,
post, p. 416.
John J. Gibbons argued the cause for
petitioner. With him on the briefs were
Brian A. Powers, by
appointment of the Court, 526 U. S. 1110, and
Ellen O.
Boardman.
Robert Q. Harris, Assistant Attorney
General of Virginia, argued the cause for respondent. With him on
the brief was
Mark L. Earley, Attorney General. *
*Briefs of
amici curiae urging reversal were filed for
the American Bar Association by
Philip S.
Anderson, Abe
Krash, Kathleen A. Behan, and
John A. Freedman; for the
American Civil Liberties Union by
Larry W Yackle and
Steven R. Shapiro; for the National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers by
John D. Cline and
Lisa B. Kemler;
for the Virginia College of Criminal Defense Attorneys et al. by
Gerald T. Zerkin; for Professors Lance G. Banning et al. by
Barry Levenstam and
Jeffrey T. Shaw; and for Marvin
E. Frankel et al. by
Abner J. Mikva.
Briefs of
amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the State of California et al. by
Bill Lockyer, Attorney
General of California,
David Druliner, Chief Assistant
Attorney General,
Dane R. Gillette, Senior Assistant
Attorney General, and
Donald E. De Nicola and
Ward A.
Campbell, Deputy Attorneys General, joined by the Attorneys
General for their respective States as follows:
Bill Pryor
of Alabama,
Bruce M. Botelho of Alaska,
Mark Pryor of
Arkansas,
Ken Salazar of Colorado,
John M. Bailey of
Connecticut,
M. Jane Brady of Delaware,
Robert A.
Butterworth of Florida,
Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia,
Alan G.
Lance of Idaho,
James E. Ryan of
Illinois,
Carla Stovall of Kansas,
Richard P. Ieyoub
of Louisiana,
J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland,
Thomas F.
Reilly of Massachusetts,
Michael C.
Moore of Mississippi,
Jeremiah W (Jay) Nixon of
Missouri,
Joseph P. Mazurek of Montana,
Don Stenberg
of Nebraska,
Frankie Sue Del Papa of Nevada,
John
J. Farmer, Jr., of New Jersey,
Patricia A.
Madrid of New Mexico,
Michael E. Easley of North
Carolina,
Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota,
Betty D.
Montgomery of Ohio,
W A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma,
Hardy Myers of Oregon,
D. Michael Fisher of
Pennsylvania,
Charles M. Condon of South Carolina,
Mark
Barnett of South Dakota,
Paul G.
Summers of
Tennessee,
John Cornyn of Texas,
Jan Graham of Utah,
Christine O.
Gregoire of Washington, and
Darrell
McGraw, Jr., of West Virginia; and for the Criminal Justice
Legal Foundation by
Kent S.
Scheidegger.
367
JUSTICE STEVENS announced the judgment of the Court and
delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III,
and IV, and an opinion with respect to Parts II and V. *
The questions presented are whether Terry Williams'
constitutional right to the effective assistance of counsel as
defined in
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), was
violated, and whether the judgment of the Virginia Supreme Court
refusing to set aside his death sentence "was contrary to, or
involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established
Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States," within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed.,
Supp. III). We answer both questions affirmatively.
I
On November 3, 1985, Harris Stone was found dead in his
residence on Henry Street in Danville, Virginia. Finding no
indication of a struggle, local officials determined that the cause
of death was blood alcohol poisoning, and the case was considered
closed. Six months after Stone's death, Terry Williams, who was
then incarcerated in the "I" unit of the city jail for an unrelated
offense, wrote a letter to the police stating that he had killed
"'that man down on Henry Street'" and also stating that he "'did
it'" to that "'lady down on West Green Street'" and was" 'very
sorry.'" The letter was unsigned, but it closed with a reference to
"I cell." App. 41. The police readily identified Williams as its
author, and, on April 25, 1986, they obtained several statements
from him. In one Williams admitted that, after Stone refused to
lend him" 'a couple of dollars,'" he had killed Stone with a
*JUSTICE SOUTER, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER join this
opinion in its entirety. JUSTICE O'CONNOR and JUSTICE KENNEDY join
Parts I, III, and IV of this opinion.
368
mattock and taken the money from his wallet.1
Id., at 4.
In September 1986, Williams was convicted of robbery and capital
murder.
At Williams' sentencing hearing, the prosecution proved that
Williams had been convicted of armed robbery in 1976 and burglary
and grand larceny in 1982. The prosecution also introduced the
written confessions that Williams had made in April. The
prosecution described two auto thefts and two separate violent
assaults on elderly victims perpetrated after the Stone murder. On
December 4, 1985, Williams had started a fire outside one victim's
residence before attacking and robbing him. On March 5, 1986,
Williams had brutally assaulted an elderly woman on West Green
Streetan incident he had mentioned in his letter to the police.
That confession was particularly damaging because other evidence
established that the woman was in a "vegetative state" and not
expected to recover.
Id., at 60. Williams had also been
convicted of arson for setting a fire in the jail while awaiting
trial in this case. Two expert witnesses employed by the State
testified that there was a "high probabil-
1" 'I had gone to Dee Dee Stone's house on Henry Street, Dee
Dee's father was there. No one else was there except him. He had
been drinking a lot. He was on the bed. He asked me if I wanted a
drink. I told him, 'No.' I asked him if I could borrow a couple of
dollars and he told me, 'No.' We started arguing and things started
going around in my head. I just wanted to get back at him. I don't
know what. He just laid back like he had passed out. He was laying
there talking and moaning to himself. I went into the kitchen. I
saw the butcher knife. I didn't want to use it. I was looking for
something to use. I went into the bathroom and I saw the mattock. I
picked up the mattock and I came back into the room where he was
at. He was laying on the bed. He was laying on his back. I took the
mattock and I hit him on the chest with it. He raised up and was
gasping for his breath. He fell over to his side and I hit him in
the back with the mattock. He fell back on the bed. I went and put
the mattock back in the bathroom. I came back into the room. I took
his wallet from his pocket. He had three dollars in it. I got the
three dollars from it. I left him there. He was still grasping for
breath.''' App.4-5.
369
ity" that Williams would pose a serious continuing threat to
society.
Id., at 89.
The evidence offered by Williams' trial counsel at the
sentencing hearing consisted of the testimony of Williams' mother,
two neighbors, and a taped excerpt from a statement by a
psychiatrist. One of the neighbors had not been previously
interviewed by defense counsel, but was noticed by counsel in the
audience during the proceedings and asked to testify on the spot.
The three witnesses briefly described Williams as a "nice boy" and
not a violent person.
Id., at 124. The recorded
psychiatrist's testimony did little more than relate Williams'
statement during an examination that in the course of one of his
earlier robberies, he had removed the bullets from a gun so as not
to injure anyone.
In his cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses, Williams'
counsel repeatedly emphasized the fact that Williams had initiated
the contact with the police that enabled them to solve the murder
and to identify him as the perpetrator of the recent assaults, as
well as the car thefts. In closing argument, Williams' counsel
characterized Williams' confessional statements as "dumb," but
asked the jury to give weight to the fact that he had "turned
himself in, not on one crime but on four ... that the [police
otherwise] would not have solved."
Id., at 140. The weight
of defense counsel's closing, however, was devoted to explaining
that it was difficult to find a reason why the jury should spare
Williams' life.2
2 In defense counsel's words: "I will admit too that it is very
difficult to ask you to show mercy to a man who maybe has not shown
much mercy himself. I doubt very seriously that he thought much
about mercy when he was in Mr. Stone's bedroom that night with him.
I doubt very seriously that he had mercy very highly on his mind
when he was walking along West Green and the incident with Alberta
Stroud. I doubt very seriously that he had mercy on his mind when
he took two cars that didn't belong to him. Admittedly it is very
difficult to get us and ask that you give this man mercy when he
has shown so little of it himself. But I would ask that you would."
Id., at 132-133.
370
The jury found a probability of future dangerousness and
unanimously fixed Williams' punishment at death. The trial judge
concluded that such punishment was "proper" and "just" and imposed
the death sentence.
Id., at 154. The Virginia Supreme Court
affirmed the conviction and sentence.
Williams v.
Commonwealth, 234 Va. 168, 360 S. E. 2d 361 (1987), cert.
denied,
Williams v.
Virginia, 484 U. S. 1020 (1988).
It rejected Williams' argument that when the trial judge imposed
sentence, he failed to give mitigating weight to the fact that
Williams had turned himself in. 234 Va., at 181-182, 360 S. E. 2d,
at 369-370.
State Habeas Corpus Proceedings
In 1988 Williams filed for state collateral relief in the
Danville Circuit Court. The petition was subsequently amended, and
the Circuit Court (the same judge who had presided over Williams'
trial and sentencing) held an evidentiary hearing on Williams'
claim that trial counsel had been ineffective.3 Based on the
evidence adduced after two days of hearings, Judge Ingram found
that Williams' conviction was valid, but that his trial attorneys
had been ineffective during sentencing. Among the evidence reviewed
that had not been presented at trial were documents prepared in
connection with Williams' commitment when he was 11 years old that
dramatically described mistreatment, abuse, and neglect during his
early childhood, as well as testimony that he was "borderline
mentally retarded," had suffered repeated head injuries, and might
have mental impairments organic in origin. App. 528-529, 595. The
habeas hearing also revealed
3 While Williams' petition was pending before the Circuit Court,
Virginia amended its state habeas statute to vest in the State
Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction to award writs of habeas
corpus in capital cases. Va. Code Ann. §8.01-654(C)(1) (Supp.
1999). Shortly after the Circuit Court held its evidentiary
hearing, the Supreme Court assumed jurisdiction over Williams'
petition and instructed the Circuit Court to issue findings of fact
and legal recommendation regarding Williams' ineffectiveassistance
claims.
371
that the same experts who had testified on the State's behalf at
trial believed that Williams, if kept in a "structured
environment," would not pose a future danger to society.
Id., at 313-314.
Counsel's failure to discover and present this and other
significant mitigating evidence was "below the range expected of
reasonable, professional competent assistance of counsel."
Id., at 424. Counsel's performance thus "did not measure up
to the standard required under the holding of
Strickland v.
Washington, 466
U. S. 668 (1984), and [if it had,] there is a reasonable
probability that the result of the sentencing phase would have been
different."
Id., at 429. Judge Ingram therefore recommended
that Williams be granted a rehearing on the sentencing phase of his
trial.
The Virginia Supreme Court did not accept that recommendation.
Williams v.
Warden, 254 Va. 16, 487 S. E. 2d 194
(1997). Although it assumed, without deciding, that trial counsel
had been ineffective,
id., at 23-26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198,
200, it disagreed with the trial judge's conclusion that Williams
had suffered sufficient prejudice to warrant relief. Treating the
prejudice inquiry as a mixed question of law and fact, the Virginia
Supreme Court accepted the factual determination that available
evidence in mitigation had not been presented at the trial, but
held that the trial judge had misapplied the law in two respects.
First, relying on our decision in
Lockhart v.
Fretwell, 506
U. S. 364 (1993), the court held that it was wrong for the
trial judge to rely "'on mere outcome determination'" when
assessing prejudice, 254 Va., at 23, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198 (quoting
Lockhart, 506 U. S., at 369). Second, it construed the trial
judge's opinion as having "adopted a
per se approach" that
would establish prejudice whenever any mitigating evidence was
omitted. 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200.
The court then reviewed the prosecution evidence supporting the
"future dangerousness" aggravating circumstance, reciting Williams'
criminal history, including the sev-
372
eral most recent offenses to which he had confessed. In
comparison, it found that the excluded mitigating evidencewhich it
characterized as merely indicating "that numerous people, mostly
relatives, thought that defendant was nonviolent and could cope
very well in a structured environment," ibid.-"barely would have
altered the profile of this defendant that was presented to the
jury,"
ibid. On this basis, the court concluded that there
was no reasonable possibility that the omitted evidence would have
affected the jury's sentencing recommendation, and that Williams
had failed to demonstrate that his sentencing proceeding was
fundamentally unfair.
Federal Habeas Corpus Proceedings
Having exhausted his state remedies, Williams sought a federal
writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed. and
Supp. III). After reviewing the state habeas hearing transcript and
the state courts' findings of fact and conclusions of law, the
federal trial judge agreed with the Virginia trial judge: The death
sentence was constitutionally infirm.
After noting that the Virginia Supreme Court had not addressed
the question whether trial counsel's performance at the sentencing
hearing fell below the range of competence demanded of lawyers in
criminal cases, the judge began by addressing that issue in detail.
He identified five categories of mitigating evidence that counsel
had failed to introduce,4
4 "(i) Counsel did not introduce evidence of the Petitioner's
background .... (ii) Counsel did not introduce evidence that
Petitioner was abused by his father. (iii) Counsel did not
introduce testimony from correctional officers who were willing to
testify that defendant would not pose a danger while incarcerated.
Nor did counsel offer prison commendations awarded to Williams for
his help in breaking up a prison drug ring and for returning a
guard's missing wallet. (iv) Several character witnesses were not
called to testify .... [T]he testimony of Elliott, a respected CPA
in the community, could have been quite important to the jury ....
(v) Finally, counsel did not introduce evidence that Petitioner
373
and he rejected the argument that counsel's failure to conduct
an adequate investigation had been a strategic decision to rely
almost entirely on the fact that Williams had voluntarily
confessed.
According to Williams' trial counsel's testimony before the
state habeas court, counsel did not fail to seek Williams' juvenile
and social services records because he thought they would be
counterproductive, but because counsel erroneously believed that"
'state law didn't permit it.'" App.470. Counsel also acknowledged
in the course of the hearings that information about Williams'
childhood would have been important in mitigation. And counsel's
failure to contact a potentially persuasive character witness was
likewise not a conscious strategic choice, but simply a failure to
return that witness' phone call offering his service.
Id.,
at 470-471. Finally, even if counsel neglected to conduct such an
investigation at the time as part of a tactical decision, the
District Judge found, tactics as a matter of reasonable performance
could not justify the omissions.
Turning to the prejudice issue, the judge determined that there
was "'a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's
unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been
different.'
Strickland, 466 U. S. at 694."
Id., at
473. He found that the Virginia Supreme Court had erroneously
assumed that
Lockhart had modified the
Strickland
standard for determining prejudice, and that it had made an
important error of fact in discussing its finding of no prejudice.5
Having introduced his analysis of Williams' claim
was borderline mentally retarded, though he was found competent
to stand trial." App.465-469.
5 "Specifically, the Virginia Supreme Court found no prejudice,
reasoning: 'The mitigation evidence that the prisoner says, in
retrospect, his trial counsel should have discovered and offered
barely would have altered the profile of this defendant that was
presented to the jury. At most, this evidence would have shown that
numerous people, mostly relatives, thought that defendant was
nonviolent and could cope very well in a structured environment.'
Williams, 487 S. E. 2d at 200. The Virginia Su-
374
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
with the standard of review applicable on habeas appeals
provided by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (1994 ed., Supp. III), the judge
concluded that those errors established that the Virginia Supreme
Court's decision "was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of, clearly established Federal law" within the meaning
of § 2254(d)(1).
The Federal Court of Appeals reversed.
163
F.3d 860 (CA4 1998). It construed § 2254(d)(1) as
prohibiting the grant of habeas corpus relief unless the state
court" 'decided the question by interpreting or applying the
relevant precedent in a manner that reasonable jurists would all
agree is unreasonable.'"
Id., at 865 (quoting
Green
v.
French, 143 F.3d
865, 870
(CA4 1998)). Applying that standard, it could
not say that the Virginia Supreme Court's decision on the prejudice
issue was an unreasonable application of the tests developed in
either
Strickland or
Lockhart.6 It explained that the
evidence that Williams presented a future danger to society was
"simply overwhelming," 163 F. 3d, at 868, it endorsed the Virginia
Supreme Court's interpretation of
Lockhart, 163 F. 3d, at
869, and it characterized the state court's understanding of the
facts in this case as "reasonable,"
id., at 870.
We granted certiorari, 526 U. S. 1050 (1999), and now
reverse.
II
In 1867, Congress enacted a statute providing that federal
courts "shall have power to grant writs of habeas corpus in
preme Court ignored or overlooked the evidence of Williams'
difficult childhood and abuse and his limited mental capacity. It
is also unreasonable to characterize the additional evidence as
coming from 'mostly relatives.' As stated,
supra, Bruce
Elliott, a respected professional in the community, and several
correctional officers offered to testify on Williams behalf."
Id., at 476.
6 Like the Virginia Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals assumed,
without deciding, that the performance of trial counsel fell below
an objective standard of reasonableness. 163 F. 3d, at 867.
375
all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her
liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law
of the United States .... " Act of Feb. 5, 1867, ch. 28, § 1, 14
Stat. 385. Over the years, the federal habeas corpus statute has
been repeatedly amended, but the scope of that jurisdictional grant
remains the same.7 It is, of course, well settled that the fact
that constitutional error occurred in the proceedings that led to a
state-court conviction may not alone be sufficient reason for
concluding that a prisoner is entitled to the remedy of habeas.
See,
e. g., Stone v.
Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976);
Brecht v.
Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619 (1993). On
the other hand, errors that undermine confidence in the fundamental
fairness of the state adjudication certainly justify the issuance
of the federal writ. See,
e. g., Teague v.
Lane, 489 U.
S. 288, 311-314 (1989) (quoting
Mackey v.
United
States, 401 U. S.
667, 692-694 (1971) (Harlan, J., concurring in judgments in
part and dissenting in part), and quoting
Rose v.
Lundy, 455 U.
S. 509, 544 (1982) (STEVENS, J., dissenting)). The deprivation
of the right to the effective assistance of counsel recognized in
Strickland is such an error.
Strickland, 466 U. S.,
at 686, 697-698.
The warden here contends that federal habeas corpus relief is
prohibited by the amendment to 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (1994 ed., Supp.
III), enacted as a part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). The relevant portion of that amendment
provides:
7 By Act of Congress: "(a) Writs of habeas corpus may be granted
by the Supreme Court, any justice thereof, the district courts and
any circuit judge within their respective jurisdictions ... (c) The
writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless- ...
(3) He is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or
treaties of the United States .... " 28 U. S. C. § 2241(c)(3). In
parallel, § 2254(a) provides: "The Supreme Court, a Justice
thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court shall entertain an
application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in
custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the
ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or
laws or treaties of the United States."
376
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
"(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a
person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall
not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on
the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of
the claim-
"(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States .... "
In this case, the Court of Appeals applied the construction of
the amendment that it had adopted in its earlier opinion in
Green v.
French, 143 F.3d
865 (CA4 1998). It read the amendment as prohibiting
federal courts from issuing the writ unless:
"(a) the state court decision is in 'square conflict' with
Supreme Court precedent that is controlling as to law and fact or
(b) if no such controlling decision exists, 'the state court's
resolution of a question of pure law rests upon an objectively
unreasonable derivation of legal principles from the relevant
[S]upreme [C]ourt precedents, or if its decision rests upon an
objectively unreasonable application of established principles to
new facts,'" 163 F. 3d, at 865 (quoting Green, 143 F. 3d, at
870).
Accordingly, it held that a federal court may issue habeas
relief only if" 'the state courts have decided the question by
interpreting or applying the relevant precedent in a manner that
reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable,'" 163 F. 3d, at
865.8
8 The warden's view is narrower. He argues that 28 U. S. C. §
2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III) establishes a new general rule
that prohibits federal courts from granting habeas corpus relief on
the basis of any claim that a state court has adjudicated on the
merits, and that § 2254(d)(1) merely identifies two narrow
exceptions to the general rule-when a state court has issued a
decision "contrary to" or an "unreasonable application of"
377
We are convinced that that interpretation of the amendment is
incorrect. It would impose a test for determining when a legal rule
is clearly established that simply cannot be squared with the real
practice of decisional law. 9 It would apply a standard for
determining the "reasonableness" of state-court decisions that is
not contained in the statute itself, and that Congress surely did
not intend. And it would wrongly require the federal courts,
including this Court, to defer to state judges' interpretations of
federal law.
As the Fourth Circuit would have it, a state-court judgment is
"unreasonable" in the face of federal law only if all reasonable
jurists would agree that the state court was unreasonable. Thus, in
this case, for example, even if the Virginia Supreme Court misread
our opinion in
Lockhart, we could not grant relief unless we
believed that none of the judges who agreed with the state court's
interpretation of that case was a "reasonable jurist." But the
statute says
clearly established federal law. Brief for Respondent 14-15. The
first, "contrary to" exception, in his view, applies only to
"starkly unreasonable" errors of law. The first category thus
imposes "a standard of review far more limited than 'de novo,'
'independent' or 'plenary' review."
Id., at 24. The
state-court judgment must thus be so far afield "as to make the
'unlawfulness' of the state court decision 'apparent.'''
Id., at 25. The second exception likewise replaces the "de
novo" standard of reviewing mixed questions of law and fact with
the standard of "objective reasonableness" as formulated by the
Court of Appeals.
Id., at 30-31.
9 Although we explain our understanding of "clearly established
law,"
infra, at 379-384, we note that the Fourth Circuit's
construction of the amendment's inquiry in this respect is
especially problematic. It separates cases into those for which a
"controlling decision" exists and those for which no such decision
exists. The former category includes very few cases, since a rule
is "controlling" only if it matches the case before the court both
"as to law and fact," and most cases are factually distinguishable
in some respect. A literal application of the Fourth Circuit test
would yield a particularly perverse outcome in cases involving the
Strickland rule for establishing ineffective assistance of
counsel, since that case, which established the "controlling" rule
of law on the issue, contained facts insufficient to show
ineffectiveness.
378
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
nothing about "reasonable judges," presumably because all, or
virtually all, such judges occasionally commit error; they make
decisions that in retrospect may be characterized as
"unreasonable." Indeed, it is most unlikely that Congress would
deliberately impose such a requirement of unanimity on federal
judges. As Congress is acutely aware, reasonable lawyers and
lawgivers regularly disagree with one another. Congress surely did
not intend that the views of one such judge who might think that
relief is not warranted in a particular case should always have
greater weight than the contrary, considered judgment of several
other reasonable judges.
The inquiry mandated by the amendment relates to the way in
which a federal habeas court exercises its duty to decide
constitutional questions; the amendment does not alter the
underlying grant of jurisdiction in § 2254(a), see n. 7,
supra.lO When federal judges exercise their federalquestion
jurisdiction under the "judicial Power" of Article III of the
Constitution, it is "emphatically the province and duty" of those
judges to "say what the law is."
Marbury v.
Madison,
1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803). At the core of this
10 Indeed, Congress roundly rejected an amendment to the bill
eventually adopted that directly invoked the text of the
jurisdictional grant, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(a) (providing that the
federal courts
"shall entertain an application for a writ of
habeas corpus" (emphasis added)). The amendment read:
"Notwithstanding any other provision oflaw, an application for a
writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to
a judgment or order of a State court
shall not be
entertained by a court of the United States unless the remedies
in the courts of the State are inadequate or ineffective to test
the legality of the person's detention." 141 Congo Rec. 14991
(1995) (amendment of Sen. Kyl) (emphasis added). In speaking
against the Kyl amendment, Senator Specter (a key proponent of the
eventual habeas reform) explained that when "dealing with the
question of jurisdiction of the Federal courts to entertain
questions on Federal issues, on constitutional issues, I believe it
is necessary that the Federal courts retain that jurisdiction as a
constitutional matter."
Id., at 15050.
379
power is the federal courts' independent
responsibility-independent from its coequal branches in the Federal
Government, and independent from the separate authority of the
several States-to interpret federal law. A construction of AEDPA
that would require the federal courts to cede this authority to the
courts of the States would be inconsistent with the practice that
federal judges have traditionally followed in discharging their
duties under Article III of the Constitution. If Congress had
intended to require such an important change in the exercise of our
jurisdiction, we believe it would have spoken with much greater
clarity than is found in the text of AEDPA.
This basic premise informs our interpretation of both parts of §
2254(d)(1): first, the requirement that the determinations of state
courts be tested only against "clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," and second,
the prohibition on the issuance of the writ unless the state
court's decision is "contrary to, or involved an unreasonable
application of," that clearly established law. We address each part
in turn.
The "clearly established law" requirement
In
Teague v.
Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), we
held that the petitioner was not entitled to federal habeas relief
because he was relying on a rule of federal law that had not been
announced until after his state conviction became final. The
antiretroactivity rule recognized in
Teague, which prohibits
reliance on "new rules," is the functional equivalent of a
statutory provision commanding exclusive reliance on "clearly
established law." Because there is no reason to believe that
Congress intended to require federal courts to ask both whether a
rule sought on habeas is "new" under
Teaguewhich remains the
law-and also whether it is "clearly established" under AEDPA, it
seems safe to assume that Congress
380
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
had congruent concepts in mindY It is perfectly clear that AEDPA
codifies
Teague to the extent that
Teague requires
federal habeas courts to deny relief that is contingent upon a rule
of law not clearly established at the time the state conviction
became final.12
Teague's core principles are therefore relevant to our
construction of this requirement. Justice Harlan recognized
11 It is not unusual for Congress to codify earlier precedent in
the habeas context. Thus, for example, the exhaustion rule applied
in
Ex parte Hawk, 321 U. S. 114 (1944)
(per curiam), and the abuse of the writ doctrine applied in
Sanders v.
United States, 373 U. S. 1 (1963), were
later codified. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(b) (1994 ed., Supp. III)
(exhaustion requirement); 28 U. S. C. § 2254, Rule 9(b), Rules
Governing § 2254 Cases in the United States District Courts. A
previous version of § 2254, as we stated in
Miller v.
Fenton, 474 U.
S. 104, 111 (1985), "was an almost verbatim codification of the
standards delineated in
Townsend v.
Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), for
determining when a district court must hold an evidentiary hearing
before acting on a habeas petition."
12We are not persuaded by the argument that because Congress
used the words "clearly established law" and not "new rule," it
meant in this section to codify an aspect of the doctrine of
executive qualified immunity rather than
Teague's
antiretroactivity bar. Brief for Respondent 28-29, n. 19. The
warden refers us specifically to § 2244(b)(2)(A) and 28 U. S. C.
§2254(e)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. III), in which the statute does in so
many words employ the "new rule" language familiar to
Teague
and its progeny. Congress thus knew precisely the words to use if
it had wished to codify
Teague per se. That it did not use
those words in § 2254(d) is evidence, the argument goes, that it
had something else in mind entirely in amending that section. We
think, quite the contrary, that the verbatim adoption of the
Teague language in these other sections bolsters our
impression that Congress had
Teague-and not any unrelated
area of our jurisprudencespecifically in mind in amending the
habeas statute. These provisions, seen together, make it impossible
to conclude that Congress was not fully aware of, and interested in
codifying into law, that aspect of this Court's habeas doctrine. We
will not assume that in a single subsection of an amendment
entirely devoted to the law of habeas corpus, Congress made the
anomalous choice of reaching into the doctrinally distinct law of
qualified immunity for a single phrase that just so happens to be
the conceptual twin of a dominant principle in habeas law of which
Congress was fully aware.
381
the "inevitable difficulties" that come with "attempting 'to
determine whether a particular decision has really announced a
"new" rule at all or whether it has simply applied a
well-established constitutional principle to govern a case which is
closely analogous to those which have been previously considered in
the prior case law.'"
Mackey, 401 U. S., at 695 (quoting
Desist v.
United States, 394 U. S. 244, 263
(1969)). But
Teague established some guidance for making
this determination, explaining that a federal habeas court operates
within the bounds of comity and finality if it applies a rule
"dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's
conviction became final." 489 U. S., at 301 (emphasis deleted). A
rule that "breaks new ground or imposes a new obligation on the
States or the Federal Government,"
ibid., falls outside this
universe of federal law.
To this, AEDPA has added, immediately following the "clearly
established law" requirement, a clause limiting the area of
relevant law to that "determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States." 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III). If this
Court has not broken sufficient legal ground to establish an
asked-for constitutional principle, the lower federal courts cannot
themselves establish such a principle with clarity sufficient to
satisfy the AEDPA bar. In this respect, we agree with the Seventh
Circuit that this clause "extends the principle of
Teague by
limiting the source of doctrine on which a federal court may rely
in addressing the application for a writ."
Lindh v.
Murphy, 96 F.3d
856, 869 (1996). As that court explained:
"This is a retrenchment from former practice, which allowed the
United States courts of appeals to rely on their own jurisprudence
in addition to that of the Supreme Court. The novelty in this
portion of § 2254(d)(1) is not the 'contrary to' part but the
reference to 'Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of
the United States' (emphasis added). This extends the principle
of Teague [v. Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989),] by
limiting the
382
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
source of doctrine on which a federal court may rely in
addressing the application for a writ. It does not, however,
purport to limit the federal courts' independent interpretive
authority with respect to federal questions."
Ibid.
A rule that fails to satisfy the foregoing criteria is barred by
Teague from application on collateral review, and,
similarly, is not available as a basis for relief in a habeas case
to which AEDPA applies.
In the context of this case, we also note that, as our precedent
interpreting
Teague has demonstrated, rules of law may be
sufficiently clear for habeas purposes even when they are expressed
in terms of a generalized standard rather than as a bright-line
rule. As JUSTICE KENNEDY has explained:
"If the rule in question is one which of necessity requires a
case-by-case examination of the evidence, then we can tolerate a
number of specific applications without saying that those
applications themselves create a new rule .... Where the beginning
point is a rule of this general application, a rule designed for
the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it
will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it
forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent." Wright v.
West, 505 U.
S. 277, 308-309 (1992) (opinion concurring in judgment).
Moreover, the determination whether or not a rule is clearly
established at the time a state court renders its final judgment of
conviction is a question as to which the "federal courts must make
an independent evaluation."
Id., at 305 (O'CONNOR, J.,
concurring in judgment); accord,
id., at 307 (KENNEDY, J.,
concurring in judgment).
It has been urged, in contrast, that we should read
Teague and its progeny to encompass a broader principle of
deference requiring federal courts to "validat[e] 'reasonable,
good-faith interpretations' of the law" by state courts.
383
Brief for California et al. as
Amici Curiae 6 (quoting
Butler v.
McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 414
(1990)). The position has been bolstered with references to our
statements elucidating the "new rule" inquiry as one turning on
whether "reasonable jurists" would agree the rule was not clearly
established.
Sawyer v.
Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 234
(1990). This presumption of deference was in essence the position
taken by three Members of this Court in
Wright, 505 U. S.,
at 290291 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) ("[A] federal habeas court 'must
defer to the state court's decision rejecting the claim unless that
decision is patently unreasonable''') (quoting
Butler,
494
Teague, however, does not extend this far. The often
repeated language that
Teague endorses "reasonable,
goodfaith interpretations" by state courts is an explanation of
policy, not a statement of law. The
Teague cases reflect
this Court's view that habeas corpus is not to be used as a second
criminal trial, and federal courts are not to run roughshod over
the considered findings and judgments of the state courts that
conducted the original trial and heard the initial appeals. On the
contrary, we have long insisted that federal habeas courts attend
closely to those considered decisions, and give them full effect
when their findings and judgments are consistent with federal law.
See
Thompson v.
Keohane, 516 U. S. 99, 107-116
(1995). But as JUSTICE O'CONNOR explained in
Wright:
"[T]he duty of the federal court in evaluating whether a rule is
'new' is not the same as deference; ... Teague does not
direct federal courts to spend less time or effort scrutinizing the
existing federal law, on the ground that they can assume the state
courts interpreted it properly ....
"[T]he maxim that federal courts should 'give great weight to
the considered conclusions of a coequal state judiciary' ... does
not mean that we have held in the past that federal courts must
presume the correctness
384
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
of a state court's legal conclusions on habeas, or that a state
court's incorrect legal determination has ever been allowed to
stand because it was reasonable. We have always held that federal
courts, even on habeas, have an independent obligation to say what
the law is." 505 U. S., at 305 (opinion concurring in
judgment).
We are convinced that in the phrase, "clearly established law,"
Congress did not intend to modify that independent obligation.
The "contrary to, or an unreasonable application of,"
requirement
The message that Congress intended to convey by using the
phrases "contrary to" and "unreasonable application of" is not
entirely clear. The prevailing view in the Circuits is that the
former phrase requires
de novo review of "pure" questions of
law and the latter requires some sort of "reasonability" review of
so-called mixed questions of law and fact. See,
e. g.,
Neelley v.
Nagle, 138 F.3d
917 (CA111998); Drinkard v.
Johnson, 97 F.3d
751 (CA5 1996);
Lindh v.
Murphy, 96 F.3d
856 (CA7 1996) (en bane), rev'd on other grounds,
521 U. S. 320
(1997).
We are not persuaded that the phrases define two mutually
exclusive categories of questions. Most constitutional questions
that arise in habeas corpus proceedings-and therefore most
"decisions" to be made-require the federal judge to apply a rule of
law to a set of facts, some of which may be disputed and some
undisputed. For example, an erroneous conclusion that particular
circumstances established the voluntariness of a confession, or
that there exists a conflict of interest when one attorney
represents multiple defendants, may well be described either as
"contrary to" or as an "unreasonable application of" the governing
rule of law. Cf.
Miller v.
Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 116
(1985);
Cuyler v.
Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 341-342
(1980). In constitutional adjudication, as in the common law, rules
of law often develop
385
incrementally as earlier decisions are applied to new factual
situations. See
Wright, 505 U. S., at 307 (KENNEDY, J.,
concurring in judgment). But rules that depend upon such
elaboration are hardly less lawlike than those that establish a
bright-line test.
Indeed, our pre-AEDPA efforts to distinguish questions of fact,
questions of law, and "mixed questions," and to create an
appropriate standard of habeas review for each, generated some not
insubstantial differences of opinion as to which issues of law fell
into which category of question, and as to which standard of review
applied to each. See
Thompson, 516 U. S., at 110-111
(acknowledging" 'that the Court has not charted an entirely clear
course in this area'" and that "the proper characterization of a
question as one of fact or law is sometimes slippery") (quoting
Miller, 474 U. S., at 113). We thus think the Fourth Circuit
was correct when it attributed the lack of clarity in the statute,
in part, to the overlapping meanings of the phrases "contrary to"
and "unreasonable application of." See
Green, 143 F. 3d, at
870.
The statutory text likewise does not obviously prescribe a
specific, recognizable standard of review for dealing with either
phrase. Significantly, it does not use any term, such as
"de
novo" or "plain error," that would easily identify a familiar
standard of review. Rather, the text is fairly read simply as a
command that a federal court not issue the habeas writ unless the
state court was wrong as a matter of law or unreasonable in its
application of law in a given case. The suggestion that a wrong
state-court "decision"-a legal judgment rendered "after
consideration of
facts, and ... law," Black's Law Dictionary
407 (6th ed. 1990) (emphasis added)-may no longer be redressed
through habeas (because it is unreachable under the "unreasonable
application" phrase) is based on a mistaken insistence that the §
2254(d)(1) phrases have not only independent, but mutually
exclusive, meanings. Whether or not a federal court can issue the
writ "under [the] 'unreasonable application' clause," the statute
is
386
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
clear that habeas may issue under § 2254(d)(1) if a state-court
"decision" is "contrary to ... clearly established Federal law." We
thus anticipate that there will be a variety of cases, like this
one, in which both phrases may be implicated.
Even though we cannot conclude that the phrases establish "a
body of rigid rules," they do express a "mood" that the Federal
Judiciary must respect.
Universal Camera Corp. v.
NLRB, 340 U.
S. 474, 487 (1951). In this respect, it seems clear that
Congress intended federal judges to attend with the utmost care to
state-court decisions, including all of the reasons supporting
their decisions, before concluding that those proceedings were
infected by constitutional error sufficiently serious to warrant
the issuance of the writ. Likewise, the statute in a separate
provision provides for the habeas remedy when a state-court
decision "was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts
in light of the evidence presented in the State court
proceeding." 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(2) (1994 ed., Supp. III)
(emphasis added). While this provision is not before us in this
case, it provides relevant context for our interpretation of §
2254(d)(1); in this respect, it bolsters our conviction that
federal habeas courts must make as the starting point of their
analysis the state courts' determinations of fact, including that
aspect of a "mixed question" that rests on a finding of fact. AEDPA
plainly sought to ensure a level of "deference to the
determinations of state courts," provided those determinations did
not conflict with federal law or apply federal law in an
unreasonable way. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-518, p. 111 (1996).
Congress wished to curb delays, to prevent "retrials" on federal
habeas, and to give effect to state convictions to the extent
possible under law. When federal courts are able to fulfill these
goals within the bounds of the law, AEDPA instructs them to do
so.
On the other hand, it is significant that the word "deference"
does not appear in the text of the statute itself. Neither the
legislative history nor the statutory text suggests
387
any difference in the so-called "deference" depending on which
of the two phrases is implicated.13 Whatever "deference" Congress
had in mind with respect to both phrases, it surely is not a
requirement that federal courts actually defer to a state-court
application of the federal law that is, in the independent judgment
of the federal court, in error. As Judge Easterbrook noted with
respect to the phrase "contrary to":
"Section 2254(d) requires us to give state courts' opinions a
respectful reading, and to listen carefully to their conclusions,
but when the state court addresses a legal question, it is the law
'as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States' that
prevails." Lindh, 96 F. 3d, at 869.14
13 As Judge Easterbrook has noted, the statute surely does not
require the kind of "deference" appropriate in other contexts: "It
does not tell us to 'defer' to state decisions, as if the
Constitution means one thing in Wisconsin and another in Indiana.
Nor does it tell us to treat state courts the way we treat federal
administrative agencies. Deference after the fashion of
Chevron
U. S.
A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council,
Inc., 467 U. S.
837 ... (1984), depends on delegation. See
Adams Fruit Co.
v. Barrett, 494
U. S. 638 ... (1990). Congress did not delegate either
interpretive or executive power to the state courts. They exercise
powers under their domestic law, constrained by the Constitution of
the United States. 'Deference' to the jurisdictions bound by those
constraints is not sensible."
Lindh v.
Murphy,
96 F.3d
856, 868
(CA7 1996) (en bane), rev'd on other grounds,
521 U. S. 320
(1997).
14 The Court advances three reasons for adopting its alternative
construction of the phrase "unreasonable application of." First,
the use of the word "unreasonable" in the statute suggests that
Congress was directly influenced by the "patently unreasonable"
standard advocated by JUSTICE THOMAS in his opinion in
Wright v.
West, 505 U. S. 277, 287
(1992),
post, at 411-412; second, the legislative history
supports this view, see
post, at 408, n.; and third,
Congress must have intended to change the law more substantially
than our reading of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III)
permits.
None of these reasons is persuasive. First, even though, as the
Court recognizes, the term "unreasonable" is "difficult to define,"
post, at 410, neither the statute itself nor the Court's
explanation of it suggests that
388
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
Our disagreement with the Court about the precise meaning of the
phrase "contrary to," and the word "unreasonable," is, of course,
important, but should affect only a narrow category of cases. The
simplest and first definition of "contrary to" as a phrase is "in
conflict with." Webster's
AEDPA's "unreasonable application of" has the same meaning as
JUSTICE THOMAS' "'patently unreasonable'" standard mentioned in his
dictum in
Wright. 505 U. S., at 291 (quoting
Butler
v.
McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 422 (1990)
(Brennan, J., dissenting)). To the extent the "broader debate" in
Wright touched upon the Court's novel distinction today
between what is "wrong" and what is "unreasonable," it was in the
context of a discussion not about the
standard of review
habeas courts should use for lawapplication questions, but about
whether a rule is "new" or "old" such that
Teague's
retroactivity rule would bar habeas relief; JUSTICE THOMAS
contended that
Teague barred habeas "whenever the state
courts have interpreted old precedents
reasonably, not [as
JUSTICE O'CONNOR suggested] only when they have done so
'properly.''' 505 U. S., at 291-292, n. 8.
Teague, of
course, as JUSTICE O'CONNOR correctly pointed out, "did not
establish a standard of review at all," 505 U. S., at 303-304;
rather than instructing a court
how to review a claim, it
simply asks, in absolute terms,
whether a rule was clear at
the time of a state-court decision. We thus do not think
Wright "confirms" anything about the meaning of §
2254(d)(I), which is, as our division reflects, anything but
"clear."
Post, at 412.
As for the other bases for the Court's view, the only two
specific citations to the legislative history upon which it relies,
post, at 408, do no more than beg the question. One merely
quotes the language of the statute without elaboration, and the
other goes to slightly greater length in stating that state-court
judgments must be upheld unless "unreasonable." Neither sheds any
light on what the content of the hypothetical category of
"decisions" that are wrong but nevertheless not "unreasonable."
Finally, while we certainly agree with the Court,
post, at
403, that AEDPA wrought substantial changes in habeas law, see
supra, at 386; see also,
e. g., 28 U. S. C. §
2244(b) (1994 ed., Supp. III) (strictly limiting second or
successive petitions); § 2244(d) (I-year statute of limitations for
habeas petitions); § 2254(e)(2) (limiting availability of
evidentiary hearings on habeas); §§ 2263, 2266 (strict deadlines
for habeas court rulings), there is an obvious fallacy in the
assumption that because the statute changed pre-existing law in
some respects, it must have rendered this specific change here.
389
Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary 285 (1983). In this sense, we
think the phrase surely capacious enough to include a finding that
the state-court "decision" is simply "erroneous" or wrong. (We
hasten to add that even "diametrically different" from, or
"opposite" to, an established federal law would seem to include
"decisions" that are wrong in light of that law.) And there is
nothing in the phrase "contrary to"-as the Court appears to
agree-that implies anything less than independent review by the
federal courts. Moreover, state-court decisions that do not
"conflict" with federal law will rarely be "unreasonable" under
either the Court's reading of the statute or ours. We all agree
that state-court judgments must be upheld unless, after the closest
examination of the state-court judgment, a federal court is firmly
convinced that a federal constitutional right has been violated.
Our difference is as to the cases in which, at first blush, a
state-court judgment seems entirely reasonable, but thorough
analysis by a federal court produces a firm conviction that that
judgment is infected by constitutional error. In our view, such an
erroneous judgment is "unreasonable" within the meaning of the Act
even though that conclusion was not immediately apparent.
In sum, the statute directs federal courts to attend to every
state-court judgment with utmost care, but it does not require them
to defer to the opinion of every reasonable state-court judge on
the content of federal law. If, after carefully weighing all the
reasons for accepting a state court's judgment, a federal court is
convinced that a prisoner's custody-or, as in this case, his
sentence of death-violates the Constitution, that independent
judgment should prevail. Otherwise the federal "law as determined
by the Supreme Court of the United States" might be applied by the
federal courts one way in Virginia and another way in California.
In light of the well-recognized interest in ensuring that federal
courts interpret federal law in a uniform
390
way,15 we are convinced that Congress did not intend the statute
to produce such a result.
III
In this case, Williams contends that he was denied his
constitutionally guaranteed right to the effective assistance of
counsel when his trial lawyers failed to investigate and to present
substantial mitigating evidence to the sentencing jury. The
threshold question under AEDPA is whether Williams seeks to apply a
rule of law that was clearly established at the time his
state-court conviction became final. That question is easily
answered because the merits of his claim are squarely governed by
our holding in
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984).
We explained in
Strickland that a violation of the right
on
which Williams relies has two components:
"First, the defendant must show that counsel's performance was
deficient. This requires showing that counsel made errors so
serious that counsel was not functioning as the 'counsel'
guaranteed the defendant by the Sixth Amendment. Second, the
defendant must show that the deficient performance prejudiced the
defense. This requires showing that counsel's errors were so
serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose
result is reliable." Id., at 687.
To establish ineffectiveness, a "defendant must show that
counsel's representation fell below an objective standard of
15 See, e. g., Mackey v. United States,
401 U. S. 667, 689
(1971); Felker v.
Turpin, 518
U. S. 651, 667 (1996) (SOUTER, J., concurring). Indeed, a
contrary rule would be in substantial tension with the interest in
uniformity served by Congress' modification in AEDPA of our
previous
Teague jurisprudence-now the law on habeas review
must be "clearly established" by this Court alone. See
supra, at 381-382. It would thus seem somewhat perverse to
ascribe to Congress the entirely inconsistent policy of
perpetuating disparate readings of our decisions under the guise of
deference to anything within a conceivable spectrum of
reasonableness.
391
reasonableness."
Id., at 688. To establish prejudice he
"must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for
counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would
have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability
sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome."
Id., at
694.
It is past question that the rule set forth in
Strickland
qualifies as "clearly established Federal law, as determined by the
Supreme Court of the United States." That the
Strickland
test "of necessity requires a case-by-case examination of the
evidence,"
Wright, 505 U. S., at 308 (KENNEDY, J.,
concurring in judgment), obviates neither the clarity of the rule
nor the extent to which the rule must be seen as "established" by
this Court. This Court's precedent "dictated" that the Virginia
Supreme Court apply the
Strickland test at the time that
court entertained Williams' ineffectiveassistance claim.
Teague, 489 U. S., at 301. And it can hardly be said that
recognizing the right to effective counsel "breaks new ground or
imposes a new obligation on the States,"
ibid. Williams is
therefore entitled to relief if the Virginia Supreme Court's
decision rejecting his ineffectiveassistance claim was either
"contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of," that
established law. It was both.
IV
The Virginia Supreme Court erred in holding that our decision in
Lockhart v.
Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364 (1993),
modified or in some way supplanted the rule set down in
Strickland. It is true that while the
Strickland test
provides sufficient guidance for resolving virtually all
ineffective-assistance-ofcounsel claims, there are situations in
which the overriding focus on fundamental fairness may affect the
analysis. Thus, on the one hand, as
Strickland itself
explained, there are a few situations in which prejudice may be
presumed. 466 U. S., at 692. And, on the other hand, there are also
situations in which it would be unjust to characterize the
392
likelihood of a different outcome as legitimate "prejudice."
Even if a defendant's false testimony might have persuaded the jury
to acquit him, it is not fundamentally unfair to conclude that he
was not prejudiced by counsel's interference with his intended
perjury.
Nix v.
Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157, 175-176
(1986).
Similarly, in
Lockhart, we concluded that, given the
overriding interest in fundamental fairness, the likelihood of a
different outcome attributable to an incorrect interpretation of
the law should be regarded as a potential "windfall" to the
defendant rather than the legitimate "prejudice" contemplated by
our opinion in
Strickland. The death sentence that Arkansas
had imposed on Bobby Ray Fretwell was based on an aggravating
circumstance (murder committed for pecuniary gain) that duplicated
an element of the underlying felony (murder in the course of a
robbery). Shortly before the trial, the United States Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had held that such "double counting"
was impermissible, see
Collins v.
Lockhart, 754 F.2d
258, 265 (1985), but Fretwell's lawyer (presumably because he
was unaware of the
Collins decision) failed to object to the
use of the pecuniary gain aggravator. Before Fretwell's claim for
federal habeas corpus relief reached this Court, the
Collins
case was overruled.16 Accordingly, even though the Arkansas trial
judge probably would have sustained a timely objection to the
double counting, it had become clear that the State had a right to
rely on the disputed aggravating circumstance. Because the
ineffectiveness of Fretwell's counsel had not deprived him of any
substantive or procedural right to which the law entitled him, we
held that his
16 In
Lowenfield v.
Phelps, 484 U. S. 231 (1988), we
held that an aggravating circumstance may duplicate an element of
the capital offense if the class of death-eligible defendants is
sufficiently narrowed by the definition of the offense itself. In
Perry v.
Lockhart, 871 F.2d
1384 (1989), the Eighth Circuit correctly decided that our
decision in
Lowenfield required it to overrule
Collins.
393
claim did not satisfy the "prejudice" component of the
Strickland test.17
Cases such as
Nix v.
Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157 (1986), and
Lockhart v.
Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364 (1993), do
not justify a departure from a straightforward application of
Strickland when the ineffectiveness of counsel
does
deprive the defendant of a substantive or procedural right to which
the law entitles him.18 In the instant case, it is undisputed that
Williams had a right-indeed, a constitutionally protected right-to
provide the jury with the mitigating evidence that his trial
counsel either failed to discover or failed to offer.
Nevertheless, the Virginia Supreme Court read our decision in
Lockhart to require a separate inquiry into fundamental
fairness even when Williams is able to show that his lawyer was
ineffective and that his ineffectiveness probably affected the
outcome of the proceeding. It wrote:
17 "But the 'prejudice' component of the
Strickland test
does not implicate these concerns. It focuses on the question
whether counsel's deficient performance renders the result of the
trial unreliable or the proceeding fundamentally unfair. [466 U.
S., at 687]; see
Kimmelman, 477 U. S., at 393 (Powell, J.,
concurring). Unreliability or unfairness does not result if the
ineffectiveness of counsel does not deprive the defendant of any
substantive or procedural right to which the law entitles him. As
we have noted, it was the premise of our grant in this case that
Perry was correctly decided, i.
e., that respondent
was not entitled to an objection based on 'double counting.'
Respondent therefore suffered no prejudice from his counsel's
deficient performance."
Lockhart v.
Fretwell,
506 U. S. 364,
372 (1993).
18 In her concurring opinion in
Lockhart, JUSTICE
O'CONNOR stressed this precise point. "I write separately only to
point out that today's decision will, in the vast majority of
cases, have no effect on the prejudice inquiry under
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984). The
determinative question-whether there is 'a reasonable probability
that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the
proceeding would have been different,'
id., at 694-remains
unchanged. This case, however, concerns the unusual circumstance
where the defendant attempts to demonstrate prejudice based on
considerations that, as a matter of law, ought not inform the
inquiry."
Id., at 373.
394
" 'The prisoner argues there 'is a "reasonable probability" that
at least one juror would have been moved to spare Petitioner's life
had he heard' the mitigation evidence developed at the habeas
hearing that was not presented at the trial. Summarizing, he
contends there 'is a "reasonable probability" that had at least one
juror heard
any of this evidence-let alone all of this
evidence-the outcome of this case would have been different.'
"We reject these contentions. The prisoner's discussion flies in
the face of the Supreme Court's admonition in
Lockhart,
supra, that 'an analysis focusing solely on mere outcome
determination, without attention to whether the result of the
proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is defective.'"
254 Va., at 25, 487 S. E. 2d, at 199.
Unlike the Virginia Supreme Court, the state trial judge omitted
any reference to
Lockhart and simply relied on our opinion
in
Strickland as stating the correct standard for judging
ineffective-assistance claims. With respect to the prejudice
component, he wrote:
"Even if a Petitioner shows that counsel's performance was
deficient, however, he must also show prejudice. Petitioner must
show 'that there is a reasonable probability that but for counsel's
unprofessional errors, the result ... would have been different.'
Strickland, 466 U. S. at 694. 'A reasonable probability is a
probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.'
Id. Indeed, it is insufficient to show only that the errors
had some conceivable effect on the outcome of the proceeding,
because virtually every act or omission of counsel would meet that
test. Id. at 693. The petitioner bears the 'highly
demanding' and 'heavy burden' in establishing actual prejudice."
App. 417.
395
The trial judge analyzed the ineffective-assistance claim under
the correct standard; the Virginia Supreme Court did not.
We are likewise persuaded that the Virginia trial judge
correctly applied both components of that standard to Williams'
ineffectiveness claim. Although he concluded that counsel
competently handled the guilt phase of the trial, he found that
their representation during the sentencing phase fell short of
professional standards-a judgment barely disputed by the State in
its brief to this Court. The record establishes that counsel did
not begin to prepare for that phase of the proceeding until a week
before the trial.
Id., at 207, 227. They failed to conduct
an investigation that would have uncovered extensive records
graphically describing Williams' nightmarish childhood, not because
of any strategic calculation but because they incorrectly thought
that state law barred access to such records. Had they done so, the
jury would have learned that Williams' parents had been imprisoned
for the criminal neglect of Williams and his siblings,19 that
Williams had been severely and repeatedly beaten by his father,
that he had been committed to the custody of the social services
bureau for two years during his parents' incarceration (including
one stint in an abusive foster home), and then, after his parents
were released from prison, had been returned to his parents'
custody.
19 Juvenile records contained the following description of his
home:
"The home was a complete wreck. ... There were several places on
the floor where someone had had a bowel movement. Urine was
standing in several places in the bedrooms. There were dirty dishes
scattered over the kitchen, and it was impossible to step any place
on the kitchen floor where there was no trash .... The children
were all dirty and none of them had on under-pants. Noah and Lula
were so intoxicated, they could not find any clothes for the
children, nor were they able to put the clothes on them .... The
children had to be put in Winslow Hospital, as four of them, by
that time, were definitely under the influence of whiskey." App.
528-529.
396
Counsel failed to introduce available evidence that Williams was
"borderline mentally retarded" and did not advance beyond sixth
grade in school.
Id., at 595. They failed to seek prison
records recording Williams' commendations for helping to crack a
prison drug ring and for returning a guard's missing wallet, or the
testimony of prison officials who described Williams as among the
inmates "least likely to act in a violent, dangerous or provocative
way."
Id., at 569,588. Counsel failed even to return the
phone call of a certified public accountant who had offered to
testify that he had visited Williams frequently when Williams was
incarcerated as part of a prison ministry program, that Williams
"seemed to thrive in a more regimented and structured environment,"
and that Williams was proud of the carpentry degree he earned while
in prison.
Id., at 563-566.
Of course, not all of the additional evidence was favorable to
Williams. The juvenile records revealed that he had been thrice
committed to the juvenile system-for aiding and abetting larceny
when he was 11 years old, for pulling a false fire alarm when he
was 12, and for breaking and entering when he was 15.
Id.,
at 534-536. But as the Federal District Court correctly observed,
the failure to introduce the comparatively voluminous amount of
evidence that did speak in Williams' favor was not justified by a
tactical decision to focus on Williams' voluntary confession.
Whether or not those omissions were sufficiently prejudicial to
have affected the outcome of sentencing, they clearly demonstrate
that trial counsel did not fulfill their obligation to conduct a
thorough investigation of the defendant's background. See 1 ABA
Standards for Criminal Justice 4-4.1, commentary,
We are also persuaded, unlike the Virginia Supreme Court, that
counsel's unprofessional service prejudiced Williams within the
meaning of
Strickland. After hearing the additional evidence
developed in the postconviction proceedings, the very judge who
presided at Williams' trial, and who once
397
determined that the death penalty was "just" and "appropriate,"
concluded that there existed "a reasonable probability that the
result of the sentencing phase would have been different" if the
jury had heard that evidence. App. 429. We do not agree with the
Virginia Supreme Court that Judge Ingram's conclusion should be
discounted because he apparently adopted "a
per se approach
to the prejudice element" that placed undue "emphasis on mere
outcome determination." 254 Va., at 26-27,487 S. E. 2d, at 200.
Judge Ingram did stress the importance of mitigation evidence in
making his "outcome determination," but it is clear that his
predictive judgment rested on his assessment of the totality of the
omitted evidence rather than on the notion that a single item of
omitted evidence, no matter how trivial, would require a new
hearing.
The Virginia Supreme Court's own analysis of prejudice reaching
the contrary conclusion was thus unreasonable in at least two
respects. First, as we have already explained, the State Supreme
Court mischaracterized at best the appropriate rule, made clear by
this Court in
Strickland, for determining whether counsel's
assistance was effective within the meaning of the Constitution.
While it may also have conducted an "outcome determinative"
analysis of its own, 254 Va., at 27, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200, it is
evident to us that the court's decision turned on its erroneous
view that a "mere" difference in outcome is not sufficient to
establish constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel. See
supra, at 394. Its analysis in this respect was thus not
only "contrary to," but also, inasmuch as the Virginia Supreme
Court relied on the inapplicable exception recognized in
Lockhart, an "unreasonable application of" the clear law as
established by this Court.
Second, the State Supreme Court's prejudice determination was
unreasonable insofar as it failed to evaluate the totality of the
available mitigation evidence-both that adduced at trial, and the
evidence adduced in the habeas pro-
398
Opinion of STEVENS, J.
ceeding-in reweighing it against the evidence in aggravation.
See
Clemons v.
Mississippi, 494 U. S. 738, 751-752
(1990). This error is apparent in its consideration of the
additional mitigation evidence developed in the postconviction
proceedings. The court correctly found that as to "the factual part
of the mixed question," there was "really ... n[o] ... dispute"
that available mitigation evidence was not presented at trial. 254
Va., at 24, 487 S. E. 2d, at 198. As to the prejudice determination
comprising the "legal part" of its analysis,
id., at 23-25,
487 S. E. 2d, at 198-199, it correctly emphasized the strength of
the prosecution evidence supporting the future dangerousness
aggravating circumstance.
But the state court failed even to mention the sole argument in
mitigation that trial counsel did advance-Williams turned himself
in, alerting police to a crime they otherwise would never have
discovered, expressing remorse for his actions, and cooperating
with the police after that. While this, coupled with the prison
records and guard testimony, may not have overcome a finding of
future dangerousness, the graphic description of Williams'
childhood, filled with abuse and privation, or the reality that he
was "borderline mentally retarded," might well have influenced the
jury's appraisal of his moral culpability. See
Boyde v.
California, 494 U. S. 370, 387
(1990). The circumstances recited in his several confessions are
consistent with the view that in each case his violent behavior was
a compulsive reaction rather than the product of cold-blooded
premeditation. Mitigating evidence unrelated to dangerousness may
alter the jury's selection of penalty, even if it does not
undermine or rebut the prosecution's death-eligibility case. The
Virginia Supreme Court did not entertain that possibility. It thus
failed to accord appropriate weight to the body of mitigation
evidence available to trial counsel.
V
In our judgment, the state trial judge was correct both in his
recognition of the established legal standard for deter-
399
mining counsel's effectiveness, and in his conclusion that the
entire postconviction record, viewed as a whole and cumulative of
mitigation evidence presented originally, raised "a reasonable
probability that the result of the sentencing proceeding would have
been different" if competent counsel had presented and explained
the significance of all the available evidence. It follows that the
Virginia Supreme Court rendered a "decision that was contrary to,
or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established
Federal law." Williams' constitutional right to the effective
assistance of counsel as defined in
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), was
violated.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed,
and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR delivered the opinion of the Court with respect
to Part II (except as to the footnote), concurred in part, and
concurred in the judgment. *
In 1996, Congress enacted the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act (AEDPA). In that Act, Congress placed a new restriction
on the power of federal courts to grant writs of habeas corpus to
state prisoners. The relevant provision, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1)
(1994 ed., Supp. III), prohibits a federal court from granting an
application for a writ of habeas corpus with respect to a claim
adjudicated on the merits in state court unless that adjudication
"resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." The Court
holds today that the Virginia Supreme Court's adjudication
*JUSTICE KENNEDY joins this opinion in its entirety. THE CHIEF
JUSTICE and JUSTICE THOMAS join this opinion with respect to Part
II. JUSTICE SCALIA joins this opinion with respect to Part II,
except as to the footnote,
infra, at 408.
400
Opinion of O'CONNOR, J.
of Terry Williams' application for state habeas corpus relief
resulted in just such a decision. I agree with that determination
and join Parts I, III, and IV of the Court's opinion. Because I
disagree, however, with the interpretation of § 2254(d)(1) set
forth in Part II of JUSTICE STEVENS' opinion, I write separately to
explain my views.
I
Before 1996, this Court held that a federal court entertaining a
state prisoner's application for habeas relief must exercise its
independent judgment when deciding both questions of constitutional
law and mixed constitutional questions (i.
e., application
of constitutional law to fact). See,
e. g., Miller v.
Fenton, 474 U.
S. 104, 112 (1985). In other words, a federal habeas court owed
no deference to a state court's resolution of such questions of law
or mixed questions. In 1991, in the case of
Wright v.
West, 502 U. S. 1021, we revisited our prior holdings by
asking the parties to address the following question in their
briefs:
"In determining whether to grant a petition for writ of habeas
corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a state
court, should a federal court give deference to the state court's
application of law to the specific facts of the petitioner's case
or should it review the state court's determination de novo?"
Ibid.
Although our ultimate decision did not turn on the answer to
that question, our several opinions did join issue on it. See
Wright v.
West, 505 U. S. 277 (1992).
JUSTICE THOMAS, announcing the judgment of the Court,
acknowledged that our precedents had "treat[ed] as settled the rule
that mixed constitutional questions are 'subject to plenary federal
review' on habeas."
Id., at 289 (quoting
Miller,
supra, at 112). He contended, nevertheless, that those
decisions did not foreclose the Court from applying a rule of
deferential review for reasonableness in future cases.
401
See 505 U. S., at 287-290. According to JUSTICE THOMAS, the
reliance of our precedents on
Brown v.
Allen,
344 U. S. 443
(1953), was erroneous because the Court in
Brown never
explored in detail whether a federal habeas court, to deny a state
prisoner's application, must conclude that the relevant state-court
adjudication was "correct" or merely that it was "reasonable."
Wright, supra, at 287. JUSTICE THOMAS suggested that the
time to revisit our decisions may have been at hand, given that our
more recent habeas jurisprudence in the nonretroactivity context,
see,
e. g., Teague v.
Lane, 489 U. S. 288 (1989), had
called into question the thensettled rule of independent review of
mixed constitutional questions.
Wright, 505 U. S., at
291-292,294.
I wrote separately in
Wright because I believed JUSTICE
THOMAS had "understate[d] the certainty with which
Brown v.
Allen rejected a deferential standard of review of issues of
law."
Id., at 300. I also explained that we had considered
the standard of review applicable to mixed constitutional questions
on numerous occasions and each time we concluded that federal
habeas courts had a duty to evaluate such questions independently.
Id., at 301-303. With respect to JUSTICE THOMAS' suggestion
that
Teague and its progeny called into question the
vitality of the independentreview rule, I noted that
"Teague
did not establish a 'deferential' standard of review" because "[i]t
did not establish a standard of review at all." 505 U. S., at
303-304. While
Teague did hold that state prisoners could
not receive "the retroactive benefit of new rules of law," it "did
not create any deferential standard of review with regard to
old rules." 505 U. S., at 304 (emphasis in original).
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for purposes of today's
case, I stated my disagreement with JUSTICE THOMAS' suggestion that
de novo review is incompatible with the maxim that federal
habeas courts should "give great weight to the considered
conclusions of a coequal state judiciary,"
Miller, supra, at
112. Our statement in
Miller signified
402
only that a state-court decision is due the same respect as any
other "persuasive, well-reasoned authority."
Wright, 505 U.
S., at 305. "But this does not mean that we have held in the past
that federal courts must presume the correctness of a state court's
legal conclusions on habeas, or that a state court's incorrect
legal determination has ever been allowed to stand because it was
reasonable. We have always held that federal courts, even on
habeas, have an independent obligation to say what the law is."
Ibid. Under the federal habeas statute as it stood in 1992,
then, our precedents dictated that a federal court should grant a
state prisoner's petition for habeas relief if that court were to
conclude in its independent judgment that the relevant state court
had erred on a question of constitutional law or on a mixed
constitutional question.
If today's case were governed by the federal habeas statute
prior to Congress' enactment of AEDPA in 1996, I would agree with
JUSTICE STEVENS that Williams' petition for habeas relief must be
granted if we, in our independent judgment, were to conclude that
his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel was
violated. See
ante, at 389.
II A
Williams' case is
not governed by the pre-1996 version of
the habeas statute. Because he filed his petition in December 1997,
Williams' case is governed by the statute as amended by AEDPA.
Section 2254 now provides:
"(d) An application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a
person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall
not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on
the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of
the claim-
"(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an
unreasonable application of, clearly estab-
403
lished Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the
United States."
Accordingly, for Williams to obtain federal habeas relief, he
must first demonstrate that his case satisfies the condition set by
§ 2254(d)(1). That provision modifies the role of federal habeas
courts in reviewing petitions filed by state prisoners.
JUSTICE STEVENS' opinion in Part II essentially contends that §
2254(d)(1) does not alter the previously settled rule of
independent review. Indeed, the opinion concludes its statutory
inquiry with the somewhat empty finding that § 2254(d)(1) does no
more than express a "'mood' that the Federal Judiciary must
respect."
Ante, at 386. For JusTICE STEVENS, the
congressionally enacted "mood" has two important qualities. First,
"federal courts [must] attend to every state-court judgment with
utmost care" by "carefully weighing all the reasons for accepting a
state court's judgment."
Ante, at 389. Second, if a federal
court undertakes that careful review and yet remains convinced that
a prisoner's custody violates the Constitution, "that independent
judgment should prevail."
Ibid.
One need look no further than our decision in
Miller to
see that JUSTICE STEVENS' interpretation of § 2254(d)(1) gives the
1996 amendment no effect whatsoever. The command that federal
courts should now use the "utmost care" by "carefully weighing" the
reasons supporting a state court's judgment echoes our pre-AEDPA
statement in
Miller that federal habeas courts "should, of
course, give great weight to the considered conclusions of a
coequal state judiciary." 474 U. S., at 112. Similarly, the
requirement that the independent judgment of a federal court must
in the end prevail essentially repeats the conclusion we reached in
the very next sentence in
Miller with respect to the
specific issue presented there: "But, as we now reaffirm, the
ultimate question whether, under the totality of the circumstances,
the challenged confession was obtained in a manner compat-
404
ible with the requirements of the Constitution
is a matter
for independent federal determination." Ibid. (emphasis
added).
That JUSTICE STEVENS would find the new § 2254(d)(1) to have no
effect on the prior law of habeas corpus is remarkable given his
apparent acknowledgment that Congress wished to bring change to the
field. See
ante, at 386 ("Congress wished to curb delays, to
prevent 'retrials' on federal habeas, and to give effect to state
convictions to the extent possible under law"). That acknowledgment
is correct and significant to this case. It cannot be disputed that
Congress viewed § 2254(d)(1) as an important means by which its
goals for habeas reform would be achieved.
JUSTICE STEVENS arrives at his erroneous interpretation by means
of one critical misstep. He fails to give independent meaning to
both the "contrary to" and "unreasonable application" clauses of
the statute. See,
e. g., ante, at 384 ("We are not persuaded
that the phrases define two mutually exclusive categories of
questions"). By reading § 2254(d)(1) as one general restriction on
the power of the federal habeas court, JUSTICE STEVENS manages to
avoid confronting the specific meaning of the statute's
"unreasonable application" clause and its ramifications for the
independent-review rule. It is, however, a cardinal principle of
statutory construction that we must" 'give effect, if possible, to
every clause and word of a statute.'''
United States v.
Menasche, 348
U. S. 528,538-539 (1955) (quoting
Montclair v.
Ramsdell, 107
U. S. 147, 152 (1883)). Section 2254(d)(1) defines two
categories of cases in which a state prisoner may obtain federal
habeas relief with respect to a claim adjudicated on the merits in
state court. Under the statute, a federal court may grant a writ of
habeas corpus if the relevant state-court decision was either (1)
"contrary to ... clearly established Federal law, as
determined by the Supreme Court of the United States," or (2)
"involved an unreasonable application of ... clearly
405
established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of
the United States." (Emphases added.)
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit properly accorded
both the "contrary to" and "unreasonable application" clauses
independent meaning. The Fourth Circuit's interpretation of §
2254(d)(1) in Williams' case relied, in turn, on that court's
previous decision in
Green v.
French, 143 F.3d
865 (1998), cert. denied, 525 U. S. 1090 (1999). See
163 F.3d
860, 866
(CA4 1998) ("[T]he standard of review
enunciated in
Green v. French continues to be the binding
law of this Circuit"). With respect to the first of the two
statutory clauses, the Fourth Circuit held in
Green that a
state-court decision can be "contrary to" this Court's clearly
established precedent in two ways. First, a state-court decision is
contrary to this Court's precedent if the state court arrives at a
conclusion opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of
law. Second, a state-court decision is also contrary to this
Court's precedent if the state court confronts facts that are
materially indistinguishable from a relevant Supreme Court
precedent and arrives at a result opposite to ours. See 143
The word "contrary" is commonly understood to mean
"diametrically different," "opposite in character or nature," or
"mutually opposed." Webster's Third New International Dictionary
495 (1976). The text of § 2254(d)(1) therefore suggests that the
state court's decision must be substantially different from the
relevant precedent of this Court. The Fourth Circuit's
interpretation of the "contrary to" clause accurately reflects this
textual meaning. A state-court decision will certainly be contrary
to our clearly established precedent if the state court applies a
rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases.
Take, for example, our decision in
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984). If
a state court were to reject a prisoner's claim of ineffective
assistance of counsel on the grounds that the
406
prisoner had not established by a preponderance of the evidence
that the result of his criminal proceeding would have been
different, that decision would be "diametrically different,"
"opposite in character or nature," and "mutually opposed" to our
clearly established precedent because we held in
Strickland
that the prisoner need only demonstrate a "reasonable probability
that ... the result of the proceeding would have been different."
Id., at 694. A state-court decision will also be contrary to
this Court's clearly established precedent if the state court
confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from
a decision of this Court and nevertheless arrives at a result
different from our precedent. Accordingly, in either of these two
scenarios, a federal court will be unconstrained by § 2254(d)(1)
because the state-court decision falls within that provision's
"contrary to" clause.
On the other hand, a run-of-the-mill state-court decision
applying the correct legal rule from our cases to the facts of a
prisoner's case would not fit comfortably within § 2254(d)(1)'s
"contrary to" clause. Assume, for example, that a state-court
decision on a prisoner's ineffectiveassistance claim correctly
identifies
Strickland as the controlling legal authority
and, applying that framework, rejects the prisoner's claim. Quite
clearly, the state-court decision would be in accord with our
decision in
Strickland as to the legal prerequisites for
establishing an ineffectiveassistance claim, even assuming the
federal court considering the prisoner's habeas application might
reach a different result applying the
Strickland framework
itself. It is difficult, however, to describe such a
run-of-the-mill state-court decision as "diametrically different"
from, "opposite in character or nature" from, or "mutually opposed"
to
Strickland, our clearly established precedent. Although
the state-court decision may be contrary to the federal court's
conception of how
Strickland ought to be applied in that
particular case, the decision is not "mutually opposed" to
Strickland itself.
407
JUSTICE STEVENS would instead construe § 2254(d)(1)'s "contrary
to" clause to encompass such a routine state-court decision. That
construction, however, saps the "unreasonable application" clause
of any meaning. If a federal habeas court can, under the "contrary
to" clause, issue the writ whenever it concludes that the state
court's
application of clearly established federal law was
incorrect, the "unreasonable application" clause becomes a nullity.
We must, however, if possible, give meaning to every clause of the
statute. JUSTICE STEVENS not only makes no attempt to do so, but
also construes the "contrary to" clause in a manner that ensures
that the "unreasonable application" clause will have no independent
meaning. See
ante, at 385-386, 388-390. We reject that
expansive interpretation of the statute. Reading § 2254(d)(1)'s
"contrary to" clause to permit a federal court to grant relief in
cases where a state court's error is limited to the manner in which
it
applies Supreme Court precedent is suspect given the
logical and natural fit of the neighboring "unreasonable
application" clause to such cases.
The Fourth Circuit's interpretation of the "unreasonable
application" clause of § 2254(d)(1) is generally correct. That
court held in
Green that a state-court decision can involve
an "unreasonable application" of this Court's clearly established
precedent in two ways. First, a state-court decision involves an
unreasonable application of this Court's precedent if the state
court identifies the correct governing legal rule from this Court's
cases but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular
state prisoner's case. Second, a state-court decision also involves
an unreasonable application of this Court's precedent if the state
court either unreasonably extends a legal principle from our
precedent to a new context where it should not apply or
unreasonably refuses to extend that principle to a new context
where it should apply. See 143 F. 3d, at 869-870.
A state-court decision that correctly identifies the governing
legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a
408
particular prisoner's case certainly would qualify as a decision
"involv[ing] an unreasonable application of ... clearly established
Federal law." Indeed, we used the almost identical phrase
"application of law" to describe a state court's application of law
to fact in the certiorari question we posed to the parties in
Wright. *
The Fourth Circuit also held in
Green that state-court
decisions that unreasonably extend a legal principle from our
precedent to a new context where it should not apply (or
unreasonably refuse to extend a legal principle to a new context
where it should apply) should be analyzed under § 2254(d)(1)'s
"unreasonable application" clause. See 143 F. 3d, at 869-870.
Although that holding may perhaps be correct, the classification
does have some problems of precision. Just as it is sometimes
difficult to distinguish a mixed question of law and fact from a
question of fact, it will often be difficult to identify separately
those state-court decisions that involve an unreasonable
application of a legal principle (or an unreasonable failure to
apply a legal principle) to a new context. Indeed, on the one hand,
in some cases it will be hard to distinguish a decision involving
an unreasonable extension of a legal principle from a decision
involving an unreasonable application of law to facts. On the other
hand, in many of the same cases it will also be difficult to
distinguish a decision involving an unreasonable extension of a
legal principle from a decision that "arrives at a conclusion
opposite to that reached by this Court on a question of law,"
supra, at 405. Today's case does not require us to decide
how
*The legislative history of § 2254(d)(1) also supports this
interpretation.
See,
e. g., 142 Congo Rec. 7799 (1996) (remarks of
Sen. Specter) ("[U]nder the bill deference will be owed to State
courts' decisions on the application of Federal law to the facts.
Unless it is unreasonable, a State court's decision applying the
law to the facts will be upheld"); 141 Congo Rec. 14666 (1995)
(remarks of Sen. Hatch) ("[W]e allow a Federal court to overturn a
State court decision only if it is contrary to clearly established
Federal law or if it involves an 'unreasonable application' of
clearly established Federal law to the facts").
409
such "extension of legal principle" cases should be treated
under § 2254(d)(1). For now it is sufficient to hold that when a
state-court decision unreasonably applies the law of this Court to
the facts of a prisoner's case, a federal court applying §
2254(d)(1) may conclude that the state-court decision falls within
that provision's "unreasonable application" clause.
B
There remains the task of defining what exactly qualifies as an
"unreasonable application" of law under § 2254(d)(1). The Fourth
Circuit held in
Green that a state-court decision involves
an "unreasonable application of ... clearly established Federal
law" only if the state court has applied federal law "in a manner
that reasonable jurists would all agree is unreasonable." 143 F.
3d, at 870. The placement of this additional overlay on the
"unreasonable application" clause was erroneous. It is difficult to
fault the Fourth Circuit for using this language given the fact
that we have employed nearly identical terminology to describe the
related inquiry undertaken by federal courts in applying the
nonretroactivity rule of
Teague. For example, in
Lambrix v.
Singletary, 520 U. S. 518 (1997), we
stated that a new rule is not dictated by precedent unless it would
be "apparent to
all reasonable jurists." Id., at 528
(emphasis added). In
Graham v.
Collins, 506 U. S. 461 (1993),
another nonretroactivity case, we employed similar language,
stating that we could not say "that
all reasonable jurists
would have deemed themselves compelled to accept Graham's claim in
1984."
Id., at 477 (emphasis added).
Defining an "unreasonable application" by reference to a
"reasonable jurist," however, is of little assistance to the courts
that must apply § 2254(d)(1) and, in fact, may be misleading.
Stated simply, a federal habeas court making the "unreasonable
application" inquiry should ask whether the state court's
application of clearly established federal law was objectively
unreasonable. The federal habeas court
410
should not transform the inquiry into a subjective one by
resting its determination instead on the simple fact that at least
one of the Nation's jurists has applied the relevant federallaw in
the same manner the state court did in the habeas petitioner's
case. The "all reasonable jurists" standard would tend to mislead
federal habeas courts by focusing their attention on a subjective
inquiry rather than on an objective one. For example, the Fifth
Circuit appears to have applied its "reasonable jurist" standard in
just such a subjective manner. See
Drinkard v.
Johnson, 97 F.3d
751, 769 (1996) (holding that state court's application of
federal law was not unreasonable because the Fifth Circuit panel
split 2-1 on the underlying mixed constitutional question), cert.
denied, 520 U. S. 1107 (1997). As I explained in
Wright with
respect to the "reasonable jurist" standard in the
Teague
context, "[e]ven though we have characterized the new rule inquiry
as whether 'reasonable jurists' could disagree as to whether a
result is dictated by precedent, the standard for determining when
a case establishes a new rule is 'objective,' and the mere
existence of conflicting authority does not necessarily mean a rule
is new." 505 U. S., at 304 (citation omitted).
The term "unreasonable" is no doubt difficult to define.
That said, it is a common term in the legal world and,
accordingly, federal judges are familiar with its meaning. For
purposes of to day's opinion, the most important point is that an
unreasonable application of federal law is different from an
incorrect application of federal law. Our opinions in
Wright, for example, make that difference clear. JUSTICE
THOMAS' criticism of this Court's subsequent reliance on
Brown turned on that distinction. The Court in
Brown,
JUSTICE THOMAS contended, held only that a federal habeas court
must determine whether the relevant state-court adjudication
resulted in a "'satisfactory conclusion.'" 505 U. S., at 287
(quoting
Brown, 344 U. S., at 463). In JUSTICE THOMAS' view,
Brown did not answer "the question whether a 'satisfactory'
conclusion was one that the habeas court considered
411
correct, as opposed to merely
reasonable." 505 U.
S., at 287 (emphases in original). In my separate opinion in
Wright, I made the same distinction, maintaining that "a
state court's
incorrect legal determination has [never] been
allowed to stand because it was
reasonable. We have always
held that federal courts, even on habeas, have an independent
obligation to say what the law is."
Id., at 305 (emphases
added). In § 2254(d)(1), Congress specifically used the word
"unreasonable," and not a term like "erroneous" or "incorrect."
Under § 2254(d)(1)'s "unreasonable application" clause, then, a
federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that
court concludes in its independent judgment that the relevant
state-court decision applied clearly established federallaw
erroneously or incorrectly. Rather, that application must also be
unreasonable.
JUSTICE STEVENS turns a blind eye to the debate in
Wright
because he finds no indication in § 2254(d)(1) itself that Congress
was "directly influenced" by JUSTICE THOMAS' opinion in
Wright.
Ante, at 387-388, n. 14. As JUSTICE STEVENS himself apparently
recognizes, however, Congress need not mention a prior decision of
this Court by name in a statute's text in order to adopt either a
rule or a meaning given a certain term in that decision. See
ante, at 380, n. 11. In any event, whether Congress intended
to codify the standard of review suggested by JUSTICE THOMAS in
Wright is beside the point.
Wright is important for
the light it sheds on § 2254(d)(1)'s requirement that a federal
habeas court inquire into the reasonableness of a state court's
application of clearly established federal law. The separate
opinions in
Wright concerned the very issue addressed by §
2254(d)(1)'s "unreasonable application" clause-whether, in
reviewing a state-court decision on a state prisoner's claims under
federal law, a federal habeas court should ask whether the
state-court decision was correct or simply whether it was
reasonable. JUSTICE STEVENS' claim that the debate in
Wright
concerned only the meaning of the
Teague nonretro-
412
activity rule is simply incorrect. See
ante, at 387-388,
n. 14. As even a cursory review of JUSTICE THOMAS' opinion and my
own opinion reveals, both the broader debate and the specific
statements to which we refer, see
supra, at 410-411,
concerned precisely the issue of the standard of review to be
employed by federal habeas courts. The
Wright opinions
confirm what § 2254(d)(1)'s language already makes clearthat an
unreasonable application of federal law is different from an
incorrect or
erroneous application of federal
law.
Throughout this discussion the meaning of the phrase "clearly
established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the
United States" has been put to the side. That statutory phrase
refers to the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court's
decisions as of the time of the relevant state-court decision. In
this respect, the "clearly established Federal law" phrase bears
only a slight connection to our
Teague jurisprudence. With
one caveat, whatever would qualify as an old rule under our
Teague jurisprudence will constitute "clearly established
Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States" under § 2254(d)(1). See,
e. g., Stringer v.
Black, 503 U.
S. 222, 228 (1992) (using term "old rule"). The one caveat, as
the statutory language makes clear, is that § 2254(d)(1) restricts
the source of clearly established law to this Court's
jurisprudence.
In sum, § 2254(d)(1) places a new constraint on the power of a
federal habeas court to grant a state prisoner's application for a
writ of habeas corpus with respect to claims adjudicated on the
merits in state court. Under § 2254(d)(1), the writ may issue only
if one of the following two conditions is satisfied-the state-court
adjudication resulted in a decision that (1) "was contrary to ...
clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court
of the United States," or (2) "involved an unreasonable application
of ... clearly established Federal law, as determined by the
Supreme Court of the United States." Under the "contrary to"
413
clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state
court arrives at a conclusion opposite to that reached by this
Court on a question of law or if the state court decides a case
differently than this Court has on a set of materially
indistinguishable facts. Under the "unreasonable application"
clause, a federal habeas court may grant the writ if the state
court identifies the correct governing legal principle from this
Court's decisions but unreasonably applies that principle to the
facts of the prisoner's case.
III
Although I disagree with JUSTICE STEVENS concerning the standard
we must apply under § 2254(d)(1) in evaluating Terry Williams'
claims on habeas, I agree with the Court that the Virginia Supreme
Court's adjudication of Williams' claim of ineffective assistance
of counsel resulted in a decision that was both contrary to and
involved an unreasonable application of this Court's clearly
established precedent. Specifically, I believe that the Court's
discussion in Parts III and IV is correct and that it demonstrates
the reasons that the Virginia Supreme Court's decision in Williams'
case, even under the interpretation of § 2254(d)(1) I have set
forth above, was both contrary to and involved an unreasonable
application of our precedent.
First, I agree with the Court that our decision in
Strickland undoubtedly qualifies as "clearly established
Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United
States," within the meaning of § 2254(d)(1). See
ante, at
390-391. Second, I agree that the Virginia Supreme Court's decision
was contrary to that clearly established federal law to the extent
it held that our decision in
Lockhart v.
Fretwell,
506 U. S. 364
(1993), somehow modified or supplanted the rule set forth in
Strickland. See
ante, at 391-395, 397. Specifically,
the Virginia Supreme Court's decision was contrary to
Strickland itself, where we held that a defendant
demonstrates prejudice by showing "that there is a reason-
414
Opinion of O'CONNOR, J.
able probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors,
the result of the proceeding would have been different." 466 U. S.,
at 694. The Virginia Supreme Court held, in contrast, that such a
focus on outcome determination was insufficient standing alone. See
Williams v.
Warden of Mecklenburg Correctional
Center, 254 Va. 16, 25, 27, 487 S. E. 2d 194, 199, 200 (1997).
Lockhart does not support that broad proposition. As I
explained in my concurring opinion in that case, "in the vast
majority of cases ... [t]he determinative question-whether there is
'a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional
errors, the result of the proceeding would have been
different'-remains unchanged." 506 U. S., at 373 (quoting
Strickland, 466 U. S., at 694). In his attempt to
demonstrate prejudice, Williams did not rely on any "considerations
that, as a matter of law, ought not inform the [prejudice]
inquiry."
Lockhart, supra, at 373 (O'CONNOR, J.,
concurring). Accordingly, as the Court ably explains, the Virginia
Supreme Court's decision was contrary to
Strickland.
To be sure, as THE CHIEF JUSTICE notes,
post, at 417-418
(opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part), the Virginia
Supreme Court did also inquire whether Williams had demonstrated a
reasonable probability that, but for his trial counsel's
unprofessional errors, the result of his sentencing would have been
different. See 254 Va., at 25-26,487 S. E. 2d, at 199-200. It is
impossible to determine, however, the extent to which the Virginia
Supreme Court's error with respect to its reading of
Lockhart affected its ultimate finding that Williams
suffered no prejudice. For example, at the conclusion of its
discussion of whether Williams had demonstrated a reasonable
probability of a different outcome at sentencing, the Virginia
Supreme Court faulted the Virginia Circuit Court for its "emphasis
on mere outcome determination, without proper attention to whether
the result of the criminal proceeding was fundamentally unfair or
unreliable." 254 Va., at 27, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200. As the Court
explains,
415
however, see
ante, at 393, Williams' case did not
implicate the unusual circumstances present in cases like
Lockhart or
Nix v.
Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157 (1986).
Accordingly, for the very reasons I set forth in my
Lockhart
concurrence, the emphasis on outcome was entirely appropriate in
Williams' case.
Third, I also agree with the Court that, to the extent the
Virginia Supreme Court did apply
Strickland, its application
was unreasonable. See
ante, at 395-398. As the Court
correctly recounts, Williams' trial counsel failed to conduct an
investigation that would have uncovered substantial amounts of
mitigation evidence. See
ante, at 395-396. For example,
speaking only of that evidence concerning Williams' "nightmarish
childhood,"
ante, at 395, the mitigation evidence that trial
counsel failed to present to the jury showed that "Williams'
parents had been imprisoned for the criminal neglect of Williams
and his siblings, that Williams had been severely and repeatedly
beaten by his father, that he had been committed to the custody of
the social services bureau for two years during his parents'
incarceration (including one stint in an abusive foster home), and
then, after his parents were released from prison, had been
returned to his parents' custody,"
ibid. (footnote omitted).
See also
ante, at 395, n. 19. The consequence of counsel's
failure to conduct the requisite, diligent investigation into his
client's troubling background and unique personal circumstances
manifested itself during his generic, unapologetic closing
argument, which provided the jury with no reasons to spare
petitioner's life. More generally, the Virginia Circuit Court found
that Williams' trial counsel failed to present evidence showing
that Williams "had a deprived and abused upbringing; that he may
have been a neglected and mistreated child; that he came from an
alcoholic family; ... that he was borderline mentally retarded;"
and that "[his] conduct had been good in certain structured
settings in his life (such as when he was incarcerated)." App.
422-423. In addition, the Circuit
416
Opinion of REHNQUIST, C. J.
Court noted the existence of "friends, neighbors and family of
[Williams] who would have testified that he had redeeming
qualities."
Id., at 423. Based on its consideration of all
of this evidence, the same trial judge that originally found
Williams' death sentence" 'justified and warranted,'"
id.,
at 155, concluded that trial counsel's deficient performance
prejudiced Williams,
id., at 424, and accordingly
recommended that Williams be granted a new sentencing hearing,
ibid. The Virginia Supreme Court's decision reveals an
obvious failure to consider the totality of the omitted mitigation
evidence. See 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200 ("At most, this
evidence would have shown that numerous people, mostly relatives,
thought that [Williams] was nonviolent and could cope very well in
a structured environment"). For that reason, and the remaining
factors discussed in the Court's opinion, I believe that the
Virginia Supreme Court's decision "involved an unreasonable
application of ... clearly established Federal law, as determined
by the Supreme Court of the United States."
Accordingly, although I disagree with the interpretation of §
2254(d)(1) set forth in Part II of JUSTICE STEVENS' opinion, I join
Parts I, III, and IV of the Court's opinion and concur in the
judgment of reversal.
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST, with whom JUSTICE SCALIA and JUSTICE
THOMAS join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the Court's interpretation of 28 U. S. C. §
2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III), see
ante, at 402-413
(opinion of O'CONNOR, J.), but disagree with its decision to grant
habeas relief in this case.
There is "clearly established Federal law, as determined by
[this Court]" that governs petitioner's claim of ineffective
assistance of counsel:
Strickland v.
Washington,
466 U. S. 668
(1984). Thus, we must determine whether the Virginia
417
Supreme Court's adjudication was "contrary to" or an
"unreasonable application of"
Strickland.
Generally, in an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel case where
the state court applies
Strickland, federal habeas courts
can proceed directly to "unreasonable application" review. But,
according to the substance of petitioner's argument, this could be
one of the rare cases where a state court applied the wrong Supreme
Court precedent, and, consequently, reached an incorrect result.
Petitioner argues, and the Court agrees, that the Virginia Supreme
Court improperly held that
Lockhart v.
Fretwell,
506 U. S. 364
(1993), "modified or in some way supplanted" the rule set down in
Strickland. See
ante, at 391. I agree that such a
holding would be improper. But the Virginia Supreme Court did not
so hold as it did not rely on
Lockhart to reach its
decision.
Before delving into the evidence presented at the sentenc-
ing proceeding, the Virginia Supreme Court stated:
"We shall demonstrate that the criminal proceeding sentencing
defendant to death was not fundamentally unfair or unreliable, and
that the prisoner's assertions about the potential effects of the
omitted proof do not establish a 'reasonable probability' that the
result of the proceeding would have been different, nor any
probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome.
Therefore, any ineffective assistance of counsel did not result in
actual prejudice to the accused." Williams v. Warden,
254 Va. 16, 25, 487 S. E. 2d 194, 199 (1997).
While the first part of this statement refers to
Lockhart, the rest of the statement is straight out of
Strickland. Indeed, after the initial allusion to
Lockhart, the Virginia Supreme Court's analysis explicitly
proceeds under
Strickland alone. *
*In analyzing the evidence that was presented to the sentencing
jury, the Virginia Supreme Court stated: "Drawing on
Strickland, we hold that, even assuming the challenged
conduct of counsel was unreasonable, the prisoner 'suffered
insufficient prejudice to warrant setting aside his death
418
Opinion of REHNQUIST, C. J.
See 254 Va., at 26-27, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200. Because the
Virginia Supreme Court did not rely on
Lockhart to make its
decision, and, instead, appropriately relied on
Strickland,
that court's adjudication was not "contrary to" this Court's
clearly established precedent.
The question then becomes whether the Virginia Supreme Court's
adjudication resulted from an "unreasonable application of"
Strickland. In my view, it did not.
I, like the Virginia Supreme Court and the Federal Court of
Appeals below, will assume without deciding that counsel's
performance fell below an objective standard of reasonableness. As
to the prejudice inquiry, I agree with the Court of Appeals that
evidence showing that petitioner presented a future danger to
society was overwhelming. As that court stated:
"The murder of Mr. Stone was just one act in a crime spree that
lasted most of Williams's life. Indeed, the jury heard evidence
that, in the months following the murder of Mr. Stone, Williams
savagely beat an elderly woman, stole two cars, set fire to a home,
stabbed a man during a robbery, set fire to the city jail, and
confessed to having strong urges to choke other inmates and to
break a fellow prisoner's jaw." 163 F.3d
860, 868 (CA41998).
sentence,' " 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200 (quoting
Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 698-699
(1984)); "[w]hat the Supreme Court said in
Strickland
applies with full force here: 'Given the overwhelming aggravating
factors, there is no reasonable probability that the omitted
evidence would have changed the conclusion that the aggravating
circumstances outweighed the mitigating circumstances and, hence,
the sentence imposed;'" 254 Va., at 26, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200
(quoting
Strickland, supra, at 700); and "[i]n conclusion,
employing the language of
Strickland, the prisoner 'has made
no showing that the justice of his sentence was rendered unreliable
by a breakdown in the adversary process caused by deficiencies in
counsel's assistance. [The prisoner's] sentencing proceeding was
not fundamentally unfair,'" 254 Va., at 27, 487 S. E. 2d, at 200
(quoting
Strickland, supra, at 700).
419
In
Strickland, we said that both the performance and
prejudice components of the ineffectiveness inquiry are mixed
questions of law and fact. 466 U. S., at 698. It is with this kind
of a question that the "unreasonable application of" clause takes
on meaning. While the determination of "prejudice" in the legal
sense may be a question of law, the subsidiary inquiries are
heavily factbound.
Here, there was strong evidence that petitioner would continue
to be a danger to society, both in and out of prison. It was not,
therefore, unreasonable for the Virginia Supreme Court to decide
that a jury would not have been swayed by evidence demonstrating
that petitioner had a terrible childhood and a low IQ. See
ante, at 395-396. The potential mitigating evidence that may
have countered the finding that petitioner was a future danger was
testimony that petitioner was not dangerous while in detention. See
ante, at 396. But, again, it is not unreasonable to assume
that the jury would have viewed this mitigation as unconvincing
upon hearing that petitioner set fire to his cell while awaiting
trial for the murder at hand and has repeated visions of harming
other inmates.
Accordingly, I would hold that habeas relief is barred by 28 U.
S. C. § 2254(d) (1994 ed., Supp. III).
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