Cite as: 506 U. S. 364 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
This extraordinary result rests entirely on the retrospective application of two changes in the law occurring after respondent's trial and sentencing. The first of these changes, on which the Court relies explicitly, affected the eligibility of defendants like Fretwell for the death penalty. The second change, never directly identified as such, is the Court's unprincipled transformation of the standards governing ineffective-assistance claims, through the introduction of an element of hindsight that has no place in our Sixth Amendment jurisprudence.
In my view, the Court of Appeals correctly determined that "fundamental unfairness exists when a prisoner receives a death sentence rather than life imprisonment solely because of his attorney's error." 1 The Court's post hoc rationale for avoiding this conclusion, self-evident until today, is both unconvincing and unjust.
I
"Unless a defendant charged with a serious offense has counsel able to invoke the procedural and substantive safeguards that distinguish our system of justice, a serious risk of injustice infects the trial itself." Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335, 343 (1980). For that reason, we have held squarely that the right to counsel guaranteed by the Constitution is a right to the "effective assistance of counsel." See United States v. Cronic, 466 U. S. 648, 654 (1984). Absent competent counsel, ready and able to subject the prosecution's case to the "crucible of meaningful adversarial testing," there can be no guarantee that the adversarial system will function properly to produce just and reliable results. Id., at 656. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 684-687 (1984).
In some cases, the circumstances surrounding a defendant's representation so strongly suggest abridgment of the
1 946 F. 2d 571, 577 (CA8 1991).
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