Cite as: 535 U. S. 162 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
Strickland under the circumstances of the present case. To answer that question, we must examine those cases in some detail.1
In Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U. S. 475 (1978), defense counsel had objected that he could not adequately represent the divergent interests of three codefendants. Id., at 478- 480. Without inquiry, the trial court had denied counsel's motions for the appointment of separate counsel and had refused to allow counsel to cross-examine any of the defendants on behalf of the other two. The Holloway Court deferred to the judgment of counsel regarding the existence of a disabling conflict, recognizing that a defense attorney is in the best position to determine when a conflict exists, that he has an ethical obligation to advise the court of any problem, and that his declarations to the court are "virtually made
1 Justice Breyer rejects Holloway v. Arkansas, 435 U. S. 475 (1978), Cuyler v. Sullivan, 446 U. S. 335 (1980), and Wood v. Georgia, 450 U. S. 261 (1981), as "a sensible [and] coherent framework for dealing with" this case, post, at 209 (dissenting opinion), and proposes instead the "categorical rule," post, at 211, that when a "breakdown in the criminal justice system creates . . . the appearance that the proceeding will not reliably serve its function as a vehicle for determination of guilt and innocence, and the resulting criminal punishment will not be regarded as fundamentally fair," ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted), reversal must be decreed without proof of prejudice. This seems to us less a categorical rule of decision than a restatement of the issue to be decided. Holloway, Sullivan, and Wood establish the framework that they do precisely because that framework is thought to identify the situations in which the conviction will reasonably not be regarded as fundamentally fair. We believe it eminently performs that function in the case at hand, and that Justice Breyer is mistaken to think otherwise. But if he does think otherwise, a proper regard for the judicial function—and especially for the function of this Court, which must lay down rules that can be followed in the innumerable cases we are unable to review—would counsel that he propose some other "sensible [and] coherent framework," rather than merely saying that prior representation of the victim, plus the capital nature of the case, plus judicial appointment of the counsel, see post, at 210, strikes him as producing a result that will not be regarded as fundamentally fair. This is not a rule of law but expression of an ad hoc "fairness" judgment (with which we disagree).
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