Cite as: 535 U. S. 162 (2002)
Souter, J., dissenting
two established procedural models to look to: Holloway's procedure of vacating judgment 9 when a judge had failed to enquire into a prospective conflict, and Sullivan's procedure of determining whether the conflict that may well have occurred had actually occurred with some adverse effect.
Treating the case as more like Sullivan and remanding was obviously the correct choice. Wood was not like Holloway, in which the judge was put on notice of a risk before trial, that is, a prospective possibility of conflict. It was, rather, much closer to Sullivan, since any notice to a court went only to a conflict, if there was one, that had pervaded a completed trial proceeding extending over two years. The only difference between Wood and Sullivan was that, in Wood, the signs that a conflict may have occurred were clear to the judge at the close of the probation revocation proceeding, whereas the claim of conflict in Sullivan was not raised until after judgment in a separate habeas proceeding, see 446 U. S., at 338. The duty of the Wood judge could only have been to enquire into the past (what had happened two years earlier at sentencing, the setting of probation 19 months later, the ensuing failures to pay, and the testimony that had already been given at the revocation hearing), just like the responsibility of the state and federal habeas courts reviewing the record in Sullivan in postconviction proceedings, see 446 U. S., at 338-339. Since the Wood judge's duty was unlike the Holloway judge's obligation to take care for the future, it would have made no sense for the Wood Court to impose a Holloway remedy.
The disposition in Wood therefore raises no doubt about the consistency of the Wood Court. Contrary to the majorition of the defendants once they were put on probation, id., at 281, n. 7 (White, J., dissenting).
9 In this case, the order would have been to vacate the commitment order based on the probation violation, and perhaps even the antecedent fine. See id., at 274, n. 21 (majority opinion).
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