338
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
plicable to pending cases, but did not make the same express provision in regards to chapter 153. That inference, however, is by no means necessary, nor is it even clearly the best inference possible. Certainly, Congress might have intended that omission to signal its intent that chapter 153 not apply to pending cases. But there are other, equally plausible, alternatives.
First, because chapter 154's applicability is conditioned upon antecedent events—namely, a State's establishing qualifying capital habeas representation procedures—Congress could have perceived a greater likelihood that, absent express provision otherwise, courts would fail to apply that chapter's provisions to pending capital cases. Second, because of the characteristically extended pendency of collateral attacks on capital convictions,1 and because of Congress' concern with the perceived acquiescence in capital defendants' dilatory tactics by some federal courts (as evidenced by chapter 154's strict time limits for adjudication of capital cases and, indeed, by the very title of the statute, the "Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996"), Congress could very well have desired to speak with exacting clarity as to the applicability of the AEDPA to pending capital cases. Or third, Congress, while intending the AEDPA definitely to apply to pending capital cases, could have been uncertain or in disagreement as to which of the many portions of chapter 153 should or should not apply to pending cases. Congress could simply have assumed that the courts would sort out such questions, using our ordinary retroactivity presumptions.
None of these competing inferences is clearly superior to the others. The Court rejects the first, ante, at 330-332, as an "implausible" solution to an "unlikely" ambiguity. But
1 See, e. g., Pet. for Habeas Corpus in In re Mata, O. T. 1995, No. 96- 5679, p. 7 (describing how it took nine years and three months for a Federal District Court to deny, and the Ninth Circuit to affirm, petitioner's first federal capital habeas petition).
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