Cite as: 505 U. S. 277 (1992)
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
tant that the phrasing not obscure the true issue before a federal court." Brown v. Allen, 344 U. S., at 501 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.). As Justice Kennedy convincingly demonstrates, the duty of the federal court in evaluating whether a rule is "new" is not the same as deference; federal courts must make an independent evaluation of the precedent existing at the time the state conviction became final in order to determine whether the case under consideration is meaningfully distinguishable. Teague does not direct federal courts to spend less time or effort scrutinizing the existing federal law, on the ground that they can assume the state courts interpreted it properly.
Eighth, though Justice Thomas suggests otherwise, ante, at 293, de novo review is not incompatible with the maxim that federal courts should "give great weight to the considered conclusions of a coequal state judiciary," Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S., at 112, just as they do to persuasive, well-reasoned authority from district or circuit courts in other jurisdictions. A state court opinion concerning the legal implications of precisely the same set of facts is the closest one can get to a "case on point," and is especially valuable for that reason. But this does not mean that we have held in the past that federal courts must presume the correctness of a state court's legal conclusions on habeas, or that a state court's incorrect legal determination has ever been allowed to stand because it was reasonable. We have always held that federal courts, even on habeas, have an independent obligation to say what the law is.
Finally, in his one-sentence summary of respondent's arguments, ante, at 294, Justice Thomas fails to mention that Congress has considered habeas corpus legislation during 27 of the past 37 years, and on 13 occasions has considered adopting a deferential standard of review along the lines suggested by Justice Thomas. Congress has rejected each proposal. In light of the case law and Congress' position, a move away from de novo review of mixed questions of law
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