Cite as: 535 U. S. 685 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
spoke in Cronic of the possibility of presuming prejudice based on an attorney's failure to test the prosecutor's case, we indicated that the attorney's failure must be complete. We said "if counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing." Cronic, supra, at 659 (emphasis added). Here, respondent's argument is not that his counsel failed to oppose the prosecution throughout the sentencing proceeding as a whole, but that his counsel failed to do so at specific points. For purposes of distinguishing between the rule of Strickland and that of Cronic, this difference is not of degree but of kind.4
The aspects of counsel's performance challenged by respondent—the failure to adduce mitigating evidence and the waiver of closing argument—are plainly of the same ilk as other specific attorney errors we have held subject to Strick-4 In concluding that Cronic applies to respondent's ineffective-assistance claim, the dissent relies in part on inferences it draws from evidence that his attorney sought treatment for a mental illness four years after respondent's trial. See post, at 715-716 (opinion of Stevens, J.). While the dissent admits that counsel's mental health problems "may have onset after [respondent's] trial," it speculates that counsel's mental health problems began earlier based on its "complete reading of the trial transcript and an assessment of [counsel's] actions at trial." Post, at 716. But, as the dissent concedes, respondent did not present any evidence regarding his counsel's mental health in the state-court proceedings. Before us, respondent does not argue that we could consider his attorney's medical records obtained in the federal habeas proceedings in assessing his Sixth Amendment claim, nor does he suggest that his counsel suffered from mental health problems at the time of his trial. Furthermore, any implication that trial counsel was impaired during his representation is contradicted by the testimony of the two experts called during the state postconviction hearing. Both had extensive experience in prosecuting and defending criminal cases and were familiar with trial counsel's abilities. Wayne Emmons said that counsel was "not only fully capable, but one of the most conscientious lawyers [he] knew." State Postconviction Tr. 73. And Stephen Shankman said he considered respondent's counsel "to be one of the finest practitioners in [the] community in the area of criminal defense work," id., at 182, and "an extremely experienced lawyer" whom he would be "hardpressed to second guess," id., at 190.
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