380
Stevens, J., dissenting
This is not, however, the standard that the Court applies today. Instead, the Court now demands that respondent point to some additional indicia of unreliability, some specific way in which the breakdown of the adversarial process affected respondent's discrete trial rights. Ante, at 369-370. But this is precisely the kind of harmless-error inquiry that the Court has rejected, time and again, in the Sixth Amendment context. When a criminal proceeding "loses its character as a confrontation between adversaries," United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S., at 656-657, the harm done a defendant is as certain as it is difficult to define. Accordingly, we consistently have declined to require that a defendant who faces the State without adequate assistance show how he is harmed as a result. See Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S., at 349; Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U. S., at 489-491; Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52, 55 (1961); Williams v. Kaiser, 323 U. S. 471, 475-477 (1945). "The right to have the assistance of counsel is too fundamental and absolute to allow courts to indulge in nice calculations as to the amount of prejudice arising from its denial." Glasser v. United States, 315 U. S., at 76.6
6 It is worth noting that Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U. S. 365 (1986), is entirely consistent with this line of case law, rendering petitioner's reliance on that case misplaced. In Kimmelman, the Court held that although certain Fourth Amendment violations are themselves not cognizable on federal habeas review, see Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), counsel's failure to litigate such Fourth Amendment claims competently may still give rise to a cognizable ineffective-assistance claim. In other words, attorney error gives rise to an ineffective-assistance claim not because it is connected to some other, independent right to which a defendant is entitled, but because in itself it "upset[s] the adversarial balance between defense and prosecution," so that the trial is rendered unfair and the verdict suspect. 477 U. S., at 374.
That Kimmelman at one point refers to the necessity for a "meritorious" Fourth Amendment claim, id., at 382, as emphasized by Justice O'Connor in her concurrence, ante, at 374, represents no more than straightforward application of Strickland's outcome-determinative test for
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