Cite as: 516 U. S. 99 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
fact or law is sometimes slippery. See ibid.; Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, 429 (1985) ("It will not always be easy to separate questions of 'fact' from 'mixed questions of law and fact' for § 2254(d) purposes . . . ."). Two lines of decisions compose the Court's § 2254(d) law/fact jurisprudence.
In several cases, the Court has classified as "factual issues" within § 2254(d)'s compass questions extending beyond the determination of "what happened." This category notably includes: competency to stand trial (e. g., Maggio v. Fulford, 462 U. S. 111, 117 (1983) (per curiam)); and juror impartiality (e. g., Witt, 469 U. S., at 429; Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1036 (1984); Rushen v. Spain, 464 U. S. 114, 120 (1983)). While these issues encompass more than "basic, primary, or historical facts," their resolution depends heavily on the trial court's appraisal of witness credibility and demeanor. See, e. g., Witt, 469 U. S., at 429 (Although the trial court is "applying some kind of legal standard to what [it] sees and hears," its "predominant function in determining juror bias involves credibility findings whose basis cannot be easily discerned from an appellate record."). This Court has reasoned that a trial court is better positioned to make decisions of this genre, and has therefore accorded the judgment of the jurist-observer "presumptive weight." Miller, 474 U. S., at 114 (when an "issue involves the credibility of witnesses and therefore turns largely on an evaluation of demeanor, there are compelling and familiar justifications for leaving the process of applying law to fact to the trial court").
On the other hand, the Court has ranked as issues of law for § 2254(d) purposes: the voluntariness of a confession (Miller, 474 U. S., at 116); the effectiveness of counsel's assistance (Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 698 (1984)); and the potential conflict of interest arising out of an attorney's representation of multiple defendants (Cuyler, 446 U. S., at 341-342). "What happened" issues in these cases warranted a presumption of correctness, but the Court declared "the ultimate question" outside § 2254(d)'s domain
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