668
O'Connor, J., concurring
the claim relies on a new rule of constitutional law, made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court, that was previously unavailable"). We cannot decide today whether Cage is retroactive to cases on collateral review, because that decision would not help Tyler in this case. Any statement on Cage's retroactivity would be dictum, so we decline to comment further on the issue.
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice O'Connor, concurring.
I join the Court's opinion and write separately to explain more fully the circumstances in which a new rule is "made retroactive to cases on collateral review by the Supreme Court." 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b)(2)(A) (1994 ed., Supp. V).
It is only through the holdings of this Court, as opposed to this Court's dicta and as opposed to the decisions of any other court, that a new rule is "made retroactive . . . by the Supreme Court" within the meaning of § 2244(b)(2)(A). See ante, at 663; cf. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 412 (2000). The clearest instance, of course, in which we can be said to have "made" a new rule retroactive is where we expressly have held the new rule to be retroactive in a case on collateral review and applied the rule to that case. But, as the Court recognizes, a single case that expressly holds a rule to be retroactive is not a sine qua non for the satisfaction of this statutory provision. Ante, at 666. This Court instead may "ma[k]e" a new rule retroactive through multiple holdings that logically dictate the retroactivity of the new rule. Ibid. To apply the syllogistic relationship described by Justice Breyer, post, at 672-673 (dissenting opinion), if we hold in Case One that a particular type of rule applies retroactively to cases on collateral review and hold in Case Two
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