Cite as: 538 U. S. 202 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
we interpret the rule announced in Lindh in view of that emphasis, as have the majority of the Courts of Appeals. See, e. g., Holman v. Gilmore, 126 F. 3d 876, 880 (CA7 1997) ("[T]he motion for counsel is not itself a petition, because it does not call for (or even permit) a decision on the merits. And it is 'the merits' that the amended § 2254(d)(1) is all about"); Isaacs, supra, at 1245 (same); Coyle, supra, at 1040 (same). Thus, whether AEDPA applies to a state prisoner turns on what was before a federal court on the date AEDPA became effective. If, on that date, the state prisoner had before a federal court an application for habeas relief seeking an adjudication on the merits of the petitioner's claims, then amended § 2254(d) does not apply. Otherwise, an application filed after AEDPA's effective date should be reviewed under AEDPA, even if other filings by that same applicant—such as, for example, a request for the appointment of counsel or a motion for a stay of execution—were presented to a federal court prior to AEDPA's effective date.
A review of the amended chapter 153 supports our conclusion. For instance, § 2254(e)(1) provides that, "[i]n a proceeding instituted by an application for a writ of habeas corpus by a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court, a determination of a factual issue made by a State court shall be presumed to be correct." (Emphasis added.) Under the Ninth Circuit's view, the presumption established in § 2254(e)(1) would rarely apply in a capital case. If, as the Ninth Circuit held, a capital habeas case can be commenced (and, therefore, may become pending for purposes of Lindh) with the filing of a request for the appointment of counsel or a motion for a stay, then § 2254(e)(1), which by its terms applies only to a proceeding "instituted" by "an application for a writ of habeas corpus," would not apply to any capital prisoners whose first filing in federal court is a request for the appointment of counsel or a motion for a stay. This would make § 2254(e)(1) applicable only to those capital prisoners who did not need counsel and did not
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