Cite as: 529 U. S. 362 (2000)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
We are convinced that that interpretation of the amendment is incorrect. It would impose a test for determining when a legal rule is clearly established that simply cannot be squared with the real practice of decisional law.9 It
would apply a standard for determining the "reasonableness" of state-court decisions that is not contained in the statute itself, and that Congress surely did not intend. And it would wrongly require the federal courts, including this Court, to defer to state judges' interpretations of federal law.
As the Fourth Circuit would have it, a state-court judgment is "unreasonable" in the face of federal law only if all reasonable jurists would agree that the state court was unreasonable. Thus, in this case, for example, even if the Virginia Supreme Court misread our opinion in Lockhart, we could not grant relief unless we believed that none of the judges who agreed with the state court's interpretation of that case was a "reasonable jurist." But the statute says
clearly established federal law. Brief for Respondent 14-15. The first, "contrary to" exception, in his view, applies only to "starkly unreasonable" errors of law. The first category thus imposes "a standard of review far more limited than 'de novo,' 'independent' or 'plenary' review." Id., at 24. The state-court judgment must thus be so far afield "as to make the 'unlawfulness' of the state court decision 'apparent.' " Id., at 25. The second exception likewise replaces the "de novo" standard of reviewing mixed questions of law and fact with the standard of "objective reasonableness" as formulated by the Court of Appeals. Id., at 30-31.
9 Although we explain our understanding of "clearly established law," infra, at 379-384, we note that the Fourth Circuit's construction of the amendment's inquiry in this respect is especially problematic. It separates cases into those for which a "controlling decision" exists and those for which no such decision exists. The former category includes very few cases, since a rule is "controlling" only if it matches the case before the court both "as to law and fact," and most cases are factually distinguishable in some respect. A literal application of the Fourth Circuit test would yield a particularly perverse outcome in cases involving the Strickland rule for establishing ineffective assistance of counsel, since that case, which established the "controlling" rule of law on the issue, contained facts insufficient to show ineffectiveness.
377
Page: Index Previous 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007