Cite as: 514 U. S. 419 (1995)
Scalia, J., dissenting
trict court and court of appeals are in agreement as to what conclusion the record requires. See, e. g., Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 336 U. S. 271, 275 (1949). How much the more should the policy be honored in this case, a federal habeas proceeding where not only both lower federal courts but also the state courts on postconviction review have all reviewed and rejected precisely the fact-specific claim before us. Cf. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (requiring federal habeas courts to accord a presumption of correctness to state-court findings of fact); Sumner, supra, at 550, n. 3. Instead, however, the Court not only grants certiorari to consider whether the Court of Appeals (and all the previous courts that agreed with it) was correct as to what the facts showed in a case where the answer is far from clear, but in the process of such consideration renders new findings of fact and judgments of credibility appropriate to a trial court of original jurisdiction. See, e. g., ante, at 425 ("Beanie seemed eager to cast suspicion on Kyles"); ante, at 441, n. 12 ("Record photographs of Beanie . . . depict a man possessing a medium build"); ante, at 449, n. 18 ("the record photograph of the homemade holster indicates . . .").
The Court says that we granted certiorari "[b]ecause '[o]ur duty to search for constitutional error with painstaking care is never more exacting than it is in a capital case,' Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 785 (1987)." Ante, at 422. The citation is perverse, for the reader who looks up the quoted opinion will discover that the very next sentence confirms the traditional practice from which the Court today glaringly departs: "Nevertheless, when the lower courts have found that [no constitutional error occurred], . . . deference to the shared conclusion of two reviewing courts prevent[s] us from substituting speculation for their considered opinions." Burger v. Kemp, 483 U. S. 776, 785 (1987).
The greatest puzzle of today's decision is what could have caused this capital case to be singled out for favored treatment. Perhaps it has been randomly selected as a symbol,
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