Cite as: 529 U. S. 362 (2000)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
any difference in the so-called "deference" depending on which of the two phrases is implicated.13 Whatever "deference" Congress had in mind with respect to both phrases, it surely is not a requirement that federal courts actually defer to a state-court application of the federal law that is, in the independent judgment of the federal court, in error. As Judge Easterbrook noted with respect to the phrase "contrary to":
"Section 2254(d) requires us to give state courts' opinions a respectful reading, and to listen carefully to their conclusions, but when the state court addresses a legal question, it is the law 'as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States' that prevails." Lindh, 96 F. 3d, at 869.14
13 As Judge Easterbrook has noted, the statute surely does not require the kind of "deference" appropriate in other contexts: "It does not tell us to 'defer' to state decisions, as if the Constitution means one thing in Wisconsin and another in Indiana. Nor does it tell us to treat state courts the way we treat federal administrative agencies. Deference after the fashion of Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 . . . (1984), depends on delegation. See Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett, 494 U. S. 638 . . . (1990). Congress did not delegate either interpretive or executive power to the state courts. They exercise powers under their domestic law, constrained by the Constitution of the United States. 'Deference' to the jurisdictions bound by those constraints is not sensible." Lindh v. Murphy, 96 F. 3d 856, 868 (CA7 1996) (en banc), rev'd on other grounds, 521 U. S. 320 (1997).
14 The Court advances three reasons for adopting its alternative construction of the phrase "unreasonable application of." First, the use of the word "unreasonable" in the statute suggests that Congress was directly influenced by the "patently unreasonable" standard advocated by Justice Thomas in his opinion in Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 287 (1992), post, at 411-412; second, the legislative history supports this view, see post, at 408, n.; and third, Congress must have intended to change the law more substantially than our reading of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. III) permits.
None of these reasons is persuasive. First, even though, as the Court recognizes, the term "unreasonable" is "difficult to define," post, at 410, neither the statute itself nor the Court's explanation of it suggests that
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