156
Opinion of the Court
U. S. 1050 (1996); see also ibid. (Scalia, J., respecting the grant of certiorari).
II
Before a state prisoner may upset his state conviction or sentence on federal collateral review, he must demonstrate as a threshold matter that the court-made rule of which he seeks the benefit is not "new." We have stated variously the formula for determining when a rule is new. See, e. g., Graham v. Collins, 506 U. S. 461, 467 (1993) ("A holding constitutes a 'new rule' within the meaning of Teague if it 'breaks new ground,' 'imposes a new obligation on the States or the Federal Government,' or was not 'dictated by precedent existing at the time the defendant's conviction became final' ") (quoting Teague, 489 U. S., at 301) (emphasis in original). At bottom, however, the Teague doctrine "validates reasonable, good-faith interpretations of existing precedents made by state courts even though they are shown to be contrary to later decisions." Butler v. McKellar, 494 U. S. 407, 414 (1990) (citation omitted). "Reasonableness, in this as in many other contexts, is an objective standard." Stringer v. Black, 503 U. S. 222, 237 (1992). Accordingly, we will not disturb a final state conviction or sentence unless it can be said that a state court, at the time the conviction or sentence became final, would have acted objectively unreasonably by not extending the relief later sought in federal court.
The Teague inquiry is conducted in three steps. First, the date on which the defendant's conviction became final is determined. Lambrix v. Singletary, 520 U. S. 518, 527 (1997). Next, the habeas court considers whether " 'a state court considering [the defendant's] claim at the time his conviction became final would have felt compelled by existing precedent to conclude that the rule [he] seeks was required by the Constitution.' " Ibid. (quoting Saffle v. Parks, 494 U. S. 484, 488 (1990)) (alterations in Lambrix). If not, then the rule is new. If the rule is determined to be new, the final step in the Teague analysis requires the court to determine whether
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