Cite as: 506 U. S. 364 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
U. S. 361, 364 (1981) (the right to counsel "is meant to assure fairness in the adversary criminal process"). Thus, "the right to the effective assistance of counsel is recognized not for its own sake, but because of the effect it has on the ability of the accused to receive a fair trial. Absent some effect of challenged conduct on the reliability of the trial process, the Sixth Amendment guarantee is generally not implicated." United States v. Cronic, supra, at 658.
The test formulated in Strickland for determining whether counsel has rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance reflects this concern. In Strickland, we identified the two components to any ineffective-assistance claim: (1) deficient performance and (2) prejudice.1 Under our decisions, a criminal defendant alleging prejudice must show "that counsel's errors were so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable." Strickland, 466 U. S., at 687; see also Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U. S. 365, 374 (1986) ("The essence of an ineffective-assistance claim is that counsel's unprofessional errors so upset the adversarial balance between defense and prosecution that the trial was rendered unfair and the verdict rendered suspect"); Nix v. Whiteside, supra, at 175. Thus, an analysis focusing solely on mere outcome determination, without attention to whether the result of the proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is defective.2 To set aside a conviction or sentence solely because the outcome
1 Petitioner concedes that counsel's performance was deficient. He therefore focuses his argument exclusively on the prejudice component.
2 Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, today's decision does not involve or require a harmless-error inquiry. Harmless-error analysis is triggered only after the reviewing court discovers that an error has been committed. And under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), an error of constitutional magnitude occurs in the Sixth Amendment context only if the defendant demonstrates (1) deficient performance and (2) prejudice. Our opinion does nothing more than apply the case-by-case prejudice inquiry that has always been built into the Strickland test. Since we find no constitutional error, we need not, and do not, consider harmlessness.
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