Cite as: 532 U. S. 782 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
"[A] federal habeas court making the 'unreasonable application' inquiry should ask whether the state court's application of clearly established federal law was objectively unreasonable." Id., at 409. Distinguishing between an unreasonable and an incorrect application of federal law, we clarified that even if the federal habeas court concludes that the state court decision applied clearly established federal law incorrectly, relief is appropriate only if that application is also objectively unreasonable. Id., at 410-411.
Although the District Court evaluated the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' disposition of Penry's claims under a standard we later rejected in Williams, see App. 882 (stating that an application of law to facts is "unreasonable 'only when it can be said that reasonable jurists considering the question would be of one view that the state court ruling was incorrect' " (citation omitted)), the Fifth Circuit articulated the proper standard of review, as set forth in § 2254(d)(1) and clarified in Williams, and denied Penry relief. Guided by this same standard, we now turn to the substance of Penry's claims.
III
A
Penry contends that the admission into evidence of the portion of the 1977 Peebles report that referred to Penry's future dangerousness violated his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination because he was never warned that the statements he made to Dr. Peebles might later be used against him. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed, concluding that when Dr. Peebles interviewed Penry, Peebles was not acting as an agent for the State in order to gather evidence that might be used against Penry. 903 S. W. 2d, at 759.
Penry argues that this case is indistinguishable from Estelle v. Smith, 451 U. S. 454 (1981). In Estelle, we considered a situation in which a psychiatrist conducted an
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