386
Stevens, J., dissenting
946 F. 2d, at 577. Under Strickland, of course, respondent need not show quite so much; it is sufficient that "the decision reached would reasonably likely have been different absent the errors." 466 U. S., at 696. A fortiori, a showing of outcome determination as strong as that made here is enough to support a Strickland claim.
In my judgment, respondent might well be entitled to relief even if he could not show prejudice as defined by Strickland's second prong. The fact that counsel's performance constituted an abject failure to address the most important legal question at issue in his client's death penalty hearing gives rise, without more, to a powerful presumption of breakdown in the entire adversarial system. That presumption is at least as strong, if not stronger, than the inferences of adversarial malfunction that required reversal in cases like Holloway and Glasser, see supra, at 377-378. In other words, there may be exceptional cases in which counsel's performance falls so grievously far below acceptable standards under Strickland's first prong that it functions as the equivalent of an actual conflict of interest, generating a presumption of prejudice and automatic reversal. I think this may well be one of those cases in which, as we wrote in Holloway, reversal would be appropriate "even if no particular prejudice is shown and even if the defendant was clearly guilty." 435 U. S., at 489 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
Of course, we need not go nearly so far to resolve the case before us. Under the Strickland standard that prevailed until today, respondent is entitled to relief on his ineffective-assistance claim, having shown both deficient performance and a reasonable likelihood of a different outcome. The Court can avoid this result only by effecting a dramatic change in that standard, and then applying it retroactively to respondent's case. In my view, the Court's decision marks a startling and most unwise departure from our commitment
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