792
Opinion of the Court
to, nor an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law. App. 893, 920. After full briefing and argument, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit denied a certificate of appealability. 215 F. 3d 504 (2000).
We stayed Penry's execution and granted certiorari to consider Penry's constitutional arguments regarding the admission of the Peebles report and the adequacy of the jury instructions. 531 U. S. 1010 (2000).
II
Because Penry filed his federal habeas petition after the enactment of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the provisions of that law govern the scope of our review. Specifically, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. V) 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."
Last Term in Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362 (2000), we explained that the "contrary to" and "unreasonable application" clauses of § 2254(d)(1) have independent meaning. Id., at 404. A state court decision will be "contrary to" our clearly established precedent if the state court either "applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases," or "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." Id., at 405-406. A state court decision will be an "unreasonable application of" our clearly established precedent if it "correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies it unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case." Id., at 407-408.
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