506
Souter, J., dissenting
301 (plurality opinion) (emphasis in original). We have said that novelty turns on whether the rule would represent a "developmen[t] in the law over which reasonable jurists [could] disagree," Sawyer v. Smith, 497 U. S. 227, 234 (1990), and we have emphasized that reasonableness is not a wholly deferential standard, by making it clear that the existence of conflicting authority does not alone imply that any rule resolving that conflict is a new one, Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 236-237 (1992).
One general rule that has emerged under Teague is that
application of existing precedent in a new factual setting will not amount to announcing a new rule. See Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 304 (1992) (O'Connor, J., joined by Blackmun and Stevens, JJ., concurring in judgment) ("If a proffered factual distinction between the case under consideration and pre-existing precedent does not change the force with which the precedent's underlying principle applies, the distinction is not meaningful, and any deviation from precedent is not reasonable"); id., at 309 (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment) ("Where the beginning point is a rule of this general application, a rule designed for the specific purpose of evaluating a myriad of factual contexts, it will be the infrequent case that yields a result so novel that it forges a new rule, one not dictated by precedent"); id., at 313 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment) (Teague "does not mean, of course, that a habeas petitioner must be able to point to an old case decided on facts identical to the facts of his own").
That said, it can be a difficult question whether a particular holding presents simply a new setting for an old rule, or announces a new one. The question is not difficult in this case, however, for its answer is governed by Penry, supra, at 313, 329, the first case in which a majority of the Court adopted the approach to retroactivity put forward by the plurality in Teague. See 492 U. S., at 313. The circumstances in which petitioner Penry sought relief, and the rule that he sought to have applied, are virtually indistinguish-
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