388
Stevens, J., dissenting
tion to individual defendants.11 An evenhanded approach to retroactivity would seem to require that we continue to evaluate defendants' claims under the law as it stood at the time of trial. If, under Teague, a defendant may not take advantage of subsequent changes in the law when they are favorable to him, then there is no self-evident reason why a State should be able to take advantage of subsequent changes in the law when they are adverse to his interests.
The Court, however, takes a directly contrary approach here. Today's decision rests critically on the proposition that respondent's ineffective-assistance claim is to be judged under the law as it exists today, rather than the law as it existed at the time of trial and sentencing. Ante, at 372. In other words, respondent must make his case under Perry v. Lockhart, 871 F. 2d 1384 (CA8), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 959 (1989), decided four years after his sentencing; unlike the State, he is not entitled to rely on "then-existing constitutional standards," Teague, 489 U. S., at 310, which rendered him ineligible for the death penalty at the time that sentence was imposed.
I have already explained why the Court's reliance on hindsight is incompatible with our right to counsel jurisprudence. It is also, in my judgment, inconsistent with case law that insists on contemporaneous constitutional standards as the benchmark against which defendants' claims are to be measured. A rule that generally precludes defendants from taking advantage of postconviction changes in the law, but allows the State to do so, cannot be reconciled with this
11 See, e. g., Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808 (1991) (Eighth Amendment does not preclude use of victim impact evidence against capital defendant at sentencing; overruling Booth v. Maryland, 482 U. S. 496 (1987), and South Carolina v. Gathers, 490 U. S. 805 (1989)); Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279 (1991) (harmless-error rule applicable to admission of involuntary confessions); Duckworth v. Eagan, 492 U. S. 195 (1989) (Miranda warnings adequate despite suggestion that lawyer will not be appointed until after interrogation); Florida v. Riley, 488 U. S. 445 (1989) (police may search greenhouse from helicopter at altitude of 400 feet without warrant).
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