Cite as: 529 U. S. 362 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
claim did not satisfy the "prejudice" component of the Strickland test.17
Cases such as Nix v. Whiteside, 475 U. S. 157 (1986), and Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364 (1993), do not justify a departure from a straightforward application of Strickland when the ineffectiveness of counsel does deprive the defendant of a substantive or procedural right to which the law entitles him.18 In the instant case, it is undisputed that Williams had a right—indeed, a constitutionally protected right—to provide the jury with the mitigating evidence that his trial counsel either failed to discover or failed to offer.
Nevertheless, the Virginia Supreme Court read our decision in Lockhart to require a separate inquiry into fundamental fairness even when Williams is able to show that his lawyer was ineffective and that his ineffectiveness probably affected the outcome of the proceeding. It wrote:
17 "But the 'prejudice' component of the Strickland test does not implicate these concerns. It focuses on the question whether counsel's deficient performance renders the result of the trial unreliable or the proceeding fundamentally unfair. [466 U. S., at 687]; see Kimmelman, 477 U. S., at 393 (Powell, J., concurring). Unreliability or unfairness does not result if the ineffectiveness of counsel does not deprive the defendant of any substantive or procedural right to which the law entitles him. As we have noted, it was the premise of our grant in this case that Perry was correctly decided, i. e., that respondent was not entitled to an objection based on 'double counting.' Respondent therefore suffered no prejudice from his counsel's deficient performance." Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U. S. 364, 372 (1993).
18 In her concurring opinion in Lockhart, Justice O'Connor stressed this precise point. "I write separately only to point out that today's decision will, in the vast majority of cases, have no effect on the prejudice inquiry under Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984). The determinative question—whether there is 'a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different,' id., at 694—remains unchanged. This case, however, concerns the unusual circumstance where the defendant attempts to demonstrate prejudice based on considerations that, as a matter of law, ought not inform the inquiry." Id., at 373.
393
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